Sir Robert and the farmer climbed aboard, and we lurched forward on the ruined road.
The barrier clanked behind us.
Sir Robert, wiping rain from his hat, smiled. To him, our moving forward was like scoring another run in a game of cricket; to me, the sound was a reminder of my entry to the Bastille, the sound of imprisonment. Yet Paris drew me. My ties with the Comte pulled and tugged, and I could no more resist moving forward than a ship can prevent itself from shattering on a lodestone rock.
“Don’t look so worried, Manon,” Sir Robert said. As a precaution we always spoke in English, and he used my first name only. “We’ll be in Paris this afternoon.”
“Yes,” I sighed.
He took my hand, the only intimacy I permitted him. His touch gave me courage. I was well aware that he was in love with me, and this love was enhanced by his sense of aiding a woman in distress. On our painfully slow journey I’d told him the pertinent details of my relationship to my husband, mentioning André briefly, and not by name.
The rain had stopped when we reached the Paris gate. We were stalled in a long, inching line. The produce and grain carts were surrounded by armed peasants. Each person was interrogated by the guards. The traffic leaving Paris moved even more slowly, and those afoot sat chatting on the side of the street. Finally we were cleared to enter the city. We went immediately to the Hôtel des Anglais, on the right bank, a hotel patronized for generations by the English.
I dressed to the dawn chatter of birds. Sleep had given me courage. After my impatience with the stupid “patriots,” after that agonizingly slow journey through the ruined countryside, the thought of a quick adversary to test my mettle was exhilarating. I must make the Comte agree to escape. He was a brilliant tactician. I must get him to plan the escape. The thought of matching wits with my husband was thrilling—and unnerving.
I examined myself in the long mirror. The green flower print of my summer frock turned my eyes the color of spring leaves, and the swathed bodice emphasized the curves of my breasts. My appearance, provocatively pretty, should delight the Comte. On the other hand, in order to get through the Paris streets, I needed to look unobtrusive. I pulled the hood of my green traveling cape low over my curls.
A leather-aproned lackey swept the hall. I slipped by him, going into the early morning. It wasn’t actually cold, but clouds threatened, and the heaviness of coming rain hung in the air.
There were no carriages for hire. In my thin-soled, high-heeled slippers, I picked my awkward way over cobbles. At the corner I stared in both directions. A wagon was coming up the street. The driver, an old woman, shouted, “Need a ride, Citizeness?”
“Please, are you going near the Palais de Justice?” An immense complex of buildings housed both the Palais de Justice and Conciergerie Prison.
“In that direction, Citizeness,” she replied.
As we jounced along, she kept up a constant chatter over some new saint, St. Ganteen, or something like that. This St. Ganteen, she averred, would accomplish the miracle of equalizing rich and poor. There was an evil note to the old woman’s chuckle; however, she was giving me a much-needed ride, so I nodded, pretending agreement. She let me off not too far from the Conciergerie. Poorly dressed women were hurrying in the same direction, and in the vast courtyard, the Cours de Mai, on the twin curve of steps, more such women were watching a crude, wooden-wheeled cart. They were knitting and chatting, yet I had a feeling they were spectators in a Roman amphitheater, awaiting those ancient sports of death. I was glad enough to get inside the Conciergerie.
In the dark hall was the registry office. The concierge—as the registrar here was called—sat between two lattices. I was to his left, and beyond his office, to his right, was a room holding two coatless men. Their neck bands were loosened, the backs of their necks shaven. My skin prickled. I understood for what the women waited, and the use of that crude cart. The two men were on their way to execution.
The concierge, a stout officer with his belly bulging over his blue uniform, ogled me in the sputtering light of an oil lamp.
“Yes?” he asked.
“I wish to see the prisoner Créqui.”
“Your name?”
“Manon d’Epinay.”
“Purpose?”
“Simply that. To see him in this place.”
“For what reason, Citizeness?”
“Reason, Citizen Concierge? Our tables have been turned. He had me locked in the Bastille.”
My heart was pounding furiously. The ploy had always worked before. But what if it didn’t now?
“You were a prisoner of the Bastille?”
“Put there by Créqui, released on July fourteenth by brave patriots.”
The registrar stood. “Citizeness, the traitor Créqui’s trial is a week from tomorrow. You will be avenged.”
“In the Bastille I dreamed of seeing him locked in a cell. That sight is my vengeance.”
“It can be arranged.”
A guard led me through interminable arched corridors and across courtyards, down steps, up winding staircases. Pairs of heavily armed guards passed us. We came to a long corridor. At the last door to the left, my guard halted, throwing the bolts. At this familiar grating of iron, I shuddered.
“Citizeness,” he said respectfully, “when you’re ready, call. Otherwise I will return in fifteen minutes.”
“Thank you, Citizen,” I said.
And the door closed behind me. A high window cast a slant of light across the rough-stoned floor. I had a confused impression of a scarred wood chair and cupboard, two cots with a backgammon board set on one, the odors of body waste and food.
Two men had risen.
The Comte was bowing. He needed a shave, and his black wool suit was dusty, his neck band loosened, but his wig was well combed. His clever monkey’s face snapped with amusement. He looked jaunty and somehow younger. This must’ve been how he looked facing danger in his army career. No-Retreat de Créqui, wasn’t that what they’d called him? Better by far for my purpose if prison had broken him a little, yet at the same time I was grateful that it hadn’t.
“Is it really you?” he asked. “Citizeness?”
“Yes, Prisoner,” I replied demurely.
He laughed. “May I present Colonel Duval, late of the Swiss Guard. My wife.”
“Comtesse.” The short broad-shouldered man bowed, picked up a book, and sat on a cot facing slimy stone walls. As I would later learn in prison, the turning of a back was not rudeness but a polite convention of invisibility.
“Now,” the Comte said, “what are you doing here? Camberwell had explicit orders to keep you in London.”
“What? A mere lawyer giving orders to the Comtesse de Créqui?”
Again he laughed.
“Comte, we don’t have much time. Tell me how to get you out of here.”
“My dear, I am leaving.”
“You are? How?”
“Next Friday I go to trial.”
“Have you bribed the judges? How can you be sure they’ll release you?”
He took my hand, drawing me to a corner of the cell. “Have you heard of a Dr. Guillotin?”
“Guillotin … the name is vaguely familiar, but …” Grimacing, I shrugged.
The Comte smiled. “My dear, I used to wait for hours until you made that gesture. Oh, I was patient as any fisherman waiting for your upper lip to point out and your shoulders to go up with that charming jiggle of breasts. But back to the good Dr. Guillotin. Like most humanitarians, he ended up serving the human race badly. He disliked the axe and the gallows, for they often bungle. So he devised a quick, sure method of death. A sharp blade falling between two boards, instantly severing the head from the body, and life from death. The Revolution hailed his invention. In his honor, they named it the guillotine. And kindhearted citizens and citizenesses come from miles around to watch it perform.”
My mind chilled. I remembered that evil chuckle. “I just heard the name,” I said. “An
old marketwoman gave me a ride here. All the way she kept chattering about a St. Ganteen. That’s what she meant.”
“You see how the country has advanced in your absence? We now have instant canonization. Well, it’s a painless death.”
“No!” I cried. “No. That is not how you’ll leave. I’ll save you. Goujon, Izette, they’ll help.”
“My dear, if that’s what brought you back to France, I am angry. I have never asked for help. I refuse to let you ask for help in my name. If you disobey, I shall denounce any who come to my aid. I assure you that our new saint is quite impartial.” He spoke with aristocratic frost.
My mind went black with anger and I clenched my fists to keep from hitting him. He was of the noblest blood, his bravery was undisputed, his mind brilliant—but did that make him too superior to accept human assistance?
I forced down my anger. “Comte, you’ve planned enough battles. You’re known as a flawless tactician. I’ll manage whatever you tell me. Alone.”
At this his mood changed abruptly. His laughter rang in the dank cell. “And how, my beautiful one-woman army, will you accomplish this?”
“I can do more than you think. I’m a released prisoner of the Bastille.”
His amused laughter rang again. “Even the most stupid Revolutionary clod would hardly bow to that particular argument to release me.”
My anger circled impotently. He was acting as if the Conciergerie were a joke, and I a playful kitten. Yet I was his last chance for freedom. If he refused to listen to me, in a little more than a week he would be standing, like those two men I’d just seen beyond the registrar’s office, his linen loosened, the strong black curls at the nape of his neck shaven, and women would jeer as he climbed aboard the crude cart.
I never had been able to properly fathom him. He, however, could read me like a book.
“My dear, we all die. So stop raging at me. Let me see you.” He took off my hooded traveling cape, holding me by my hands so he could examine me. “It must be this bad light, but you’ve never been so lovely.”
His finger lightly rubbed my lower lip, and the thrill of his touch leaped through my body. My breath caught.
“Yes?” he whispered.
Yes, I thought, yes. I was ready for him. He had retained the power to arouse me, he still made me want him—however much I resented the wanting. As his finger moved lightly on my lips, the familiar weakening warmth spread through me. My anxiety to rescue him from this awful place remained, but every vestige of anger melted.
“It’s been so long,” I whispered shakily.
“Should I take that to mean you’ve been faithful?”
I nodded.
His dark eyes were suddenly curious. “Why?”
“We’re married. It would be wrong.”
“My dear, you’re incorrigibly, incurably honest. Why not lie? Say you care too deeply for me to let our love be defiled.” He spoke jestingly, yet in his eyes were two pinpoints of unhappiness.
“Comte, in England you have many friends, both French and English.” I was trapped between desire and the need to impose my will on him. “And it’s pleasurable knowing you can earn your keep.”
“I’d make an excellent stable hand, you think?”
“Be serious.”
“Why? Amuse me. Are you thinking to support me as you do your brother, painting portraits? By the by, thank you for the letters. I take it you never got my replies?”
“No,” I said. “Please, please, Comte, we have so very little time. Help me. Tell me what to do. You’re so very clever.”
“How shall we pass the hours you aren’t daubing to earn our bread?”
What could I say to bring him to his senses, make him at least try to escape? What meant much to him? “I’m so very sorry about our baby. I want us to have others.”
“The thought of not having a child by you saddens me,” he said harshly. “Therefore it’s not amusing.”
Pages of Colonel Duval’s book rustled. The Comte turned away.
His face still averted, he said, “Listen to me, my dear, for I say this one final time. I’ve shed blood for France, I’ve spent my life serving her. My ancestors did the same. They are buried here. And here my bones, too, will lie. Do you understand? I—do—not—run—away.”
Memory, sharp as a new blade, cut through me. That long-ago morning when, in lieu of apology, he’d revealed the brave little boy he’d been, never asking quarter, never running from a fight.
He turned, smiling. “Cheer up. Black will suit you well, with those clear green eyes and that lovely pale hair. You’ll be the most charming widow in London.” He pressed his heavily bristled cheek to mine, whispering against my ear, “Ever since you walked in I’ve been aching for you. You want me. Think. We can spend our last minutes together, not arguing, but doing what gives us the greatest pleasure.”
I flushed, involuntarily glancing at the colonel’s back.
“Him? I’ll strangle him with my bare hands. He’ll die within the week anyway. And this will be a far more worthy cause.” There was amusement in his whisper. All at once amusement faded and his low voice clotted. “Oh, my sweetest dear, how I’ve missed you, how I’ve missed you.”
His large hands cupped my breasts, all too vulnerable under the thin flowered lawn, his breath was hot against my ear. Quivers of pleasure traveled along my nerves, and my arms went hungrily around him. Caressing his shoulders, I curved myself into his body. In that wildly passionate embrace it didn’t seem possible that my husband, vital and demanding, could refuse to quit this antechamber of death.
He must have read my thoughts. “I’ve had the best life has to offer,” he whispered.
It was a compliment, yet a coldness went through me. My body stopped responding. I grew stiff as if I were embracing a corpse.
The Comte pulled away. His voice earnest, he said, “Go back to London. Leave today.”
“You won’t join me so we may once again enjoy … the act of love?” My body was numb, yet I managed to make my voice flirtatious.
The Comte took my hands, his grip tightening, and for a brief instant I remembered how he’d grasped them as CoCo was tearing free of my body.
“Leave,” he said, his voice dead level. “Go today. You must not see your old lover.”
At mention of André, I could not look at my husband. Had he guessed, at some point, why I’d left France? Or was he jealous?
“I have no thought of seeing him,” I said.
His hard grip didn’t loosen. “After my death you’ll be tempted,” he said.
I shook my head. “No,” I lied. Of course I’d be tempted, but my going to André would harm him. “No.”
The Comte’s expression changed to a dark emotion. There was no trace of jealousy, only of fear for me. “Don’t argue,” he said. “You’ll want to see him. And the circumstances of his birth make him dangerous, very dangerous.”
Here was yet another strand in the impenetrable web of mystery that surrounded André’s background. The Comte appeared to be one of the few privy to the intrigue. “But who are his parents? They’re dead, I know that much. So how can they endanger anyone?”
“I should have remembered danger acts on you as catnip on a cat.”
“Comte—”
“The less you know, the safer you’ll be,” he said, adamant. “England is safe. It is my last wish that you return. There, my dear, Camberwell and Camberwell will give you a pleasant surprise.”
The bolt grated. The Comte loosed my hands, and we pulled apart.
The Comte gave the guard the same unseeing nod he’d bestowed on his servants. His servants had admired him and remained loyal. The guard appeared to have the same respect. He made a small anxious bow. “Comte, it’s time for the lady—the citizeness to leave.”
The Comte took my cape from the pallet, handing it to me. “Thank you for a pleasurable break in my routine, Citizeness,” he said, bowing formally.
His clever raisin-dark eyes were amus
ed, sad, loving, and very alive.
Chapter Two
When I emerged, rain was falling, more of the unseasonal fine rain that fit my hopeless gloom. Sentries crossed and recrossed the huge courtyard. The women had left the stone staircase and the tumbrel no longer waited.
Beyond the courtyard railings was a hack stand. The equipages were gone. There were no carts or wagons in sight. I would have to walk the long way back to Hôtel des Anglais.
I trudged along, shivering. The streets hadn’t been mended. Stretches of stone were missing, and in these holes the mud was thick, sucking at my shoes. The left heel was loose and a few times the shoe came off completely. As I bent to replace it, my flowered green skirt and traveling cape would sink in the mud. Soon I didn’t even try to lift them. The hems dragged after me.
The few minutes in the Comte’s cell had unnerved me. I was consumed with dread for him. I forgot the questions about André. As rain penetrated my summer-light cape, I thought about the Comte. He had integrity of spirit. An aristocrat to his marrow, he was endowed with courage and dignity—and a way of laughing at these qualities.
I wasn’t sure whether it was this indomitable wit or his bravery or the passion he’d roused in me. Inside me was an even stronger determination to keep him from death.
But how, I asked myself leadenly. He refuses to escape.
I crossed the Seine. Below me, on rain-rippled water, a blinkered mule pulled a barge. One barge, where there had been so many.
The Comte’s motivations remained an enigma to me. He still wanted me in every way a man can want a woman, that had been obvious. Yet at the same time he refused to even consider escape. He would rather die in a country that no longer wanted him or his kind than to live abroad.
“He won’t even try!” I heard myself mutter. “He prefers this new guillotine thing to me!”
Horrified at this odd spurt of rage, I stumbled. Only my gloved hands prevented me from cracking my chin. Mud splattered my skirts to midthigh. Ragged washerwomen scrubbing under a covered fountain, cackled loudly. The sight of a well-dressed woman in misery gave them joy.
French Passion Page 28
