The Star of Versailles

by Catherine Curzon

  Tessier watched her silently and she knew that he was remembering a woman more than ten years ago who had been the light in his darkness. She had been the one spark of hope in a life that had been crowded with learning and politics, with dreams of a better future for all of them.

  “What is it that you want, Sylvie?”

  A tiny, barely perceptible shake of the head was her response.

  He left his position at the window and walked the short distance to stand beside the bed. “Why did you leave me again?”

  Sylvie lifted her head to look at him, resting it slightly to one side as though she didn’t quite understand, then she said, “Because you don’t want me, Monsieur Tessier—you forgot me as soon as you caught a whiff of revolution. All I’m asking is that you let us reach Le Havre—get your Star, get your playwright, your spy, the whole bloody lot of them.“

  “Then you disapprove of what I have done?”

  “I might not have done it myself,” Sylvie said. “But look at what you’ve become—I kept hearing your name and all the time I was thinking that I made a mistake in leaving, but what could I do? You weren’t a student no more, you wouldn’t want the likes of me now, would you?”

  “But the other night—” Tessier began, suddenly alarmed at the direction her words had taken.

  “Well,”— she sighed, turning to offer him a smile—“I wanted to give you something and I don’t have nothing, do I? All I have is my Bastien and what you see before you. I don’t have a livre to my name, Vincent—you’re somebody now, I’m still nobody.”

  “I would give everything I have if you would let me embrace you.”

  “My Bastien,” she said as though he had not spoken, moving back to the glass and smiling down at her child in the courtyard. “He’s so small down there playing with the horses and all… If you could choose between the diamond and the spy, where would you stake your claim?”

  “The spy,” he admitted without hesitation. “But where the Star of Versailles goes, Gaudet is sure to follow.”

  “Then we will meet at our next inn when I arrive and not before,” she told him, picking up her bundle and pecking a kiss to his cheek. “Go there and wait for me.”

  * * * *

  The Butcher of Orléans, Sylvie thought with a smirk as she and Bastien trudged on good-naturedly toward the farmhouse that was on Charron’s list, is soft as a babe.

  And there’s no way he’s getting that bloody diamond.

  “Here we are, son,” she said as they reached the worn, wooden door, twilight already descending and no sign of life within. “Our home for the night.”

  “You’re sure,” Bastien asked as she knocked heavily, “that Tessier won’t find us, Ma? After what he did to Thierry, if I see him again—”

  “Shhh,” she hushed her son, knocking once more.

  The door was opened by Dee, who regarded her for a long moment before he looked over her head through narrowed eyes, as though expecting to see something there. Finally, he said, “Mademoiselle Dupire and Bastien, I had heard you were free.”

  “Thank the Lord.” Sylvie affected her most relieved expression. “Thank everything that we have found you—”

  “Bastien.” Dee smiled at the boy who had been his messenger in Paris. “Adam’s round the back with the horses—go and say hello while your mother gets settled?” As the young man took off running, Dee offered the same smile to Sylvie and said, “Let’s get the tea on?”

  She nodded, watching Dee through lowered lashes as she followed him. “Tea and company, it’s our lucky night—we’re due some luck, aren’t we?”

  “If Vincent Tessier let you go,” Dee commented airily, “You’ve had plenty of luck already.”

  “We’re safe here with you, aren’t we?”

  “I would be very surprised”—he gestured to a seat at the kitchen table—“if you weren’t.”

  Sylvie kept silent for a while as she waited, certain that this man, like any other, had a weakness, a way that she could bend him to her will, if only she could find it. And find it she would—she had a knack for that, after all.

  “Charron is dead—I saw the dispatches.”

  There was a flicker of something that she recognized as remorse and she ducked her head. “Thierry…”

  “And yet… Tessier let you go.” Dee set a cup before her and took his own seat. “Why would he do that?”

  “Who can begin to understand why a monster does things?” Sylvie dared to glance at him, surprised to find that he was staring straight at her, blue eyes piercing in the dusk. She recovered herself enough to say, “It’s been a good long while since I had a cup of anything…”

  “And, tonight, we have a fine meal planned,” Dee promised. “I have managed to come by lamb, don’t ask how, but it’s a fine joint.”

  He was a useful man to know indeed. Sylvie smiled to herself, telling Dee demurely, “That will be welcome news to my boy. You are too kind, sir, too kind by far.”

  “Well, as the Bible doesn’t quite say…” Dee retrieved a silver flask from his coat, adding a nip of liquor to the two cups. “Eat, drink and be merry.” He held her gaze, taking a sip. “For tomorrow, we die.”

  Not if I can help it. She inclined her head at the words, however, accepting her own cup and holding it up to proclaim firmly, “I’ll drink to that.”

  “And you at least have your boy, though I doubt you will see much of him now he and Adam have horses to groom.”

  “He’s a good boy.” There was no need to force a smile at that. “Better than I deserve…”

  “The young ones are the best of us. They deserve more than a country going to Hell.” He sighed, shaking his head before asking mischievously, “Would you believe that our hideaway has a piano?”

  “Will you be giving us a little turn?” Sylvie tilted her head, peering through her lashes as she added, “I bet you play well.”

  “I play…adequately. I might be convinced to give a tune or two.”

  “Oh, you should,” she pressed, taking another sip of tea. “We could all do with some cheer.”

  “Your playwright’s safely upstairs.” Dee left the table to cross to the oven and peer inside. “I’m sure he’d like a party.”

  “I’m sure you’d be right.”

  “Then perhaps we will have a little gathering.” He smiled, glancing back at her. “I shall relish your good company, Mademoiselle. Paris seems a long time ago.”

  “Too long…” She chanced a slight flutter of eyelashes, mustering her best and bravest expression. “I’m well used to being alone, but that don’t make it any easier.”

  “Well,” Dee told her, “You are not alone this evening.”

  “I can’t tell you how glad I am of that.”

  “I assume Charron passed his contacts to you? There’s no other way you might have found us. ”

  “He told me everything.”

  “He must have trusted you completely,” Dee observed as he began to assemble some fresh vegetables for dinner that evening, Sylvie’s eyes never straying from him. “A true compliment from a fine man.”

  “He asked me to tell him that I loved him”—Sylvie fixed her gaze on the cup before her—“the last time we saw each other in that cell.”

  “Some men ask for a Bible.” Dee turned to meet her gaze again, his voice soft. “Some for a last word from those they love. Tonight, we will toast his memory and your freedom.”

  It worked. She felt a surge of triumph, mingled, as ever, with the contempt she felt for all men to some degree or other. Allowing herself the slightest smile, she said in reply, “And your protection, sir—it’s not often that I get such good company.”

  “Consider me at your disposal,” Dee replied. “Do you need anything for the bruises on your face?”

  “There’s people”—she lowered her gaze—“who’ve been through much worse.”

  Dee crossed the room to rest his hand on her shoulder and say, “I understand, Sylvie—let me help you.”
r />   “You’ll have me blubbing.” She covered his hand with her own. “And I don’t do that.”

  “Then let us pour the wine and speak of less serious matters.”

  Sylvie nodded, her hand lingering for a moment longer than was strictly necessary before he turned away to pour the wine. She was surprised. Professor Dee had been so built up by Tessier that she had expected him to be so much harder to break.

  “The work you do…” Sylvie began, lifting a hand to her lips as if catching herself. “Forgive me, it’s none of my business.”

  “A simple traveler, Mademoiselle,” he assured her, “of little excitement.”

  “Of course.” She smiled inwardly. “Of course.”

  “And you, like me,” Dee observed as he unloaded a sack of fresh vegetables onto the table, Sylvie’s eyes widening at the very largesse of it, “have been somewhat pulled into events, I think? There are no innocent bystanders left in France, it seems.”

  “All I want is to be safe,” she told him, getting to her feet. “Me and my boy. That’s all I hope for now.”

  “Then tonight we’ll forget it all…too much food, some music, perhaps a little more wine, too?”

  “Ma!” Bastien rapped on the window and Sylvie turned, just reining in the angry retort that sprang to her lips. Instead, she waved at the boy, hoping he would take the hint and leave.

  “Look!” He held up a coin, adding, “For sorting the tack for Adam!”

  “Run along,” Sylvie called brightly, thinking that at least he was doing something of use. “And have fun now!”

  With another wave, the boy dashed away again, leaving Dee to comment, “He’s a good lad, that one.” As he spoke he offered a knife and gestured to the vegetables. “Get chopping.”

  Sylvie was no stranger to such work, and a moment later she was bringing the blade down, keeping half an eye on Dee. Long minutes passed in contented silence as they prepared the meal, Bastien occasionally returning to the window to show his mother a new treasure which she greeted with theatrical delight.

  “We’ll have a feast fit for a king,” Sylvie observed presently.

  “No kings,” Dee told her with a mischievous smile, then he stooped a little, mouth very close to her ear when he whispered, “The Convention might hear.”

  She allowed herself to lean back just a touch until she knew her hair would be tickling his skin and whispered in turn, “And we wouldn’t want that.”

  “Sylvie!” Gaudet’s voice was an excitable shriek and a moment later the playwright bounded across the kitchen to take her in a warm embrace. “The most beautiful girl in Paris, I have missed you so!”

  Just managing to keep her feet, she had no choice but to cling to the excitable Frenchman, telling him when she had righted herself, “Just waiting here for you, Monsieur.”

  “This woman is an angel, a saint,” he told the man who claimed not to be Dee, but clearly was. “She fed me, washed my wounds, listened to my ravings. I had thought you lost.”

  Sylvie shook her head and murmured a denial, though it was true—she had bathed Gaudet’s wounds and held his hand, watched him sleep in Charron’s house, listened to the fevered mutterings as his body unconsciously fought its injuries. And a diamond was the reward she would take for her efforts.

  “You’ll be making me blush,” she told him after a moment. “And that’s all behind us now—look how well you are!”

  “It is thanks to my good friend, Guillaume, and the professor, who carries a fine scotch and is,” Gaudet dropped his voice, “a fine figure of a chap.”

  “He’s been taking care of me very well since we arrived,” Sylvie confided in a loud whisper. “Fine figure that he is.”

  Dee glanced at her with a smile as she spoke and Gaudet whispered, “You could do a lot worse, those eyes.”

  Sylvie allowed herself a demure glance, her expression suggesting that, although she remained silent, she most definitely agreed with him. “There’s to be a bit of a party,” she told him. “A celebration.”

  Gaudet clapped. “I shall recite a bawdy tale or two.”

  “Dinner will be ready soon,” Dee told them. “Let the festivities begin!”

  Chapter Twenty

  A party. William shook his head as he fastened his coat, the worst of the mud splashes now removed. He would escape at the first opportunity. The thought of an evening with the assorted others in the house was not one that filled him with pleasure. He recalled again Gaudet in the lake, the expression on the other man’s face before he pushed it hurriedly away, telling his reflection in a murmur, “And my ears are not pink.”

  With a final glance, he made his way from the room, muttering to himself as he reached the hall below, where Bastien was waiting to catch his hand and draw him toward the cozy sitting room, exclaiming, “Come and get some booze down you.”

  “I’m not—”

  “All right, have some tea like the professor, just…” The boy’s smile slipped momentarily. “Let’s all have a laugh, yeah?”

  A laugh. He thought he heard Gaudet’s deafening bray at that, managing a smile for the boy. “It will be a fun evening, I’m sure.”

  “Uncle André’s having a hell of a time already,” Bastien agreed. “Come on.”

  The sound of merriment reached William before he entered the sitting room and he fought the sudden urge to run, even as he crossed the threshold. At the hearth stood a vision in vibrant blue silk, Gaudet swathed in the suit rescued during their flight from Paris, with the poodle held beneath his arm. Richly pigmented iridescent colors were blended into the fabric to create a jacket, waistcoat and breeches that appeared to shimmer. The white shirt he wore was a mass of frills and lace. Around his neck was a cravat tied into an enormous bow, fastened with a rock-sized sapphire pin. Matching buckles adorned mirror-polished leather boots and he was, William was sure, wearing makeup.

  He blinked, and blinked again, but still the view remained the same, and he wondered just how this transformation had been achieved. “Bloody hell…”

  “And here is my knight in armor,” Gaudet exclaimed as his gaze settled on William, a slight narrowing of his eyes unmissable when they swept over the still mud-stained coat. “Or my knight in a muddy coat, but still a welcome sight.”

  “I dressed down,” he told the Frenchman, “to avoid outshining you.”

  Dee laughed a touch too loudly in response to that and Gaudet declared, “I don’t think we need fear that, Guillaume. “

  “Well,” he huffed. “Well!”

  “Mademoiselle.” Dee offered his arm to Sylvie. “Might I escort you to the table?”

  “You’re spoiling me.”

  William watched with distaste as the woman laughed, head tilted to peer at her escort.

  “Unless you would rather one of the other gentlemen,” Dee said. “I am not quite a silk-clad playwright, nor a knight in armor, after all.”

  “I’ve no objections,” Sylvie smiled coquettishly, eyes shining, “to a professor.”

  With Bastien running ahead, Gaudet turned to William and asked, “Will you escort me, chérie?”

  “Will I—?” William found himself, not for the first time, staring at the playwright.

  “Of course,” Gaudet said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Pap and I shall escort one another.”

  “There is no harm in walking together,” William decided after a moment, realizing he might have seemed churlish, even as he wondered why he should care.

  It was, however, something of a surprise when Gaudet slipped his free arm through William’s own, beaming at him before he asked, “You’ll note I was subtle with my makeup?”

  ‘Subtle’ was not the word William would have chosen, but he managed to keep that to himself, remarking instead, “How very restrained of you.”

  “If one is attending a function,” Gaudet observed as they made their way through the house, “one makes an effort, Bobbins.”

  “I brushed the dirt off.” William found himself defendi
ng his clothing, even as he reminded himself that he didn’t care what this dandy thought of his wardrobe.

  “I think it needs something.” Gaudet stopped and withdrew his arm, bundling the poodle into William’s grip. Then, with a frown of utmost concentration, he retied the cravat with a decidedly showier knot. It was then that William registered the heart patch the playwright wore, the slight fragrance of roses about him. After another close examination Gaudet glanced down at his own ring-bedecked hands and removed one large diamond. He threaded this carefully along the cravat and said, “There! A little impromptu perhaps, but far more fitting for the gentleman on my arm.”

  “Will I do now?” William sounded, he realized, almost meek. He hardly knew where the question had come from or why he gave a damn for the answer.

  Gaudet peered very closely, lips pursed and said, “I think you will do admirably.”

  “Well, that’s a relief.” He managed not to roll his eyes, resisting the urge to fiddle with the cravat as they passed through into the dining room. Despite himself, William paused on the threshold, wondering if Dee was some sort of miracle worker after all.

  Despite their reduced circumstances, the table was set for a feast, albeit one with mismatched crockery and cutlery, bright spring flowers colorful and fragrant in the candlelight. The scent of the roasting lamb, the first proper meal William could remember having in days, filled the room and bottles of wine and beer were an unexpected yet more than welcome sight. At the table, Harriet greeted them with a smile before she and Bastien fell to chattering and Dee told them all, “Tonight, we forget our troubles.”

  If there were ever a setting in which that could be possible, William almost thought it might be this one. He took a seat, wine the first thing on his mind as he reached for a glass.

  “A little,” Gaudet cautioned. “When the professor takes to the keys, I intend to give a song. I thought you might join me?”

  “You want me,” William realized with horror, “to sing?”