The Star of Versailles

by Catherine Curzon

  “Don’t you dare.” Sylvie’s anger flared and she darted out her hand, slapping him across the cheek, the sound loud and sharp.

  “Cow!” Bastien bellowed again, tears flowing down his face.

  She raised her hand once more, sure that he should have been taught this lesson a long, long time ago.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Tessier stared at the raging surface of the ocean, hardly feeling the rain that fell upon his shoulders. It dripped from his hat onto the ground at his feet, the letter he held gradually growing wetter in his hand. The dark ink that now ran in wordless streams had carried his death sentence just minutes earlier and he barely breathed, a lump forming in his throat that seemed likely to choke him.

  There was the suggestion of movement in that hard line of a mouth as Tessier chewed at the inside of his lower lip until he tasted blood and, even then, he bit down harder, tearing at the flesh.

  You are urged to return to Paris…

  We are all to be called to account…

  Citizen Robespierre is dead.

  He screwed the paper into a ball and closed his eyes tightly, his arm at full stretch as the letter rolled from his palm into the waves. Then his eyelids flickered again and he threw his head back to stare into the clouds. Above Le Havre, the sky itself was cracking, lightning flashing in the heavens as Tessier finally recognized the joke, heard the laughter of the very gods. His scarred hands seemed to burn in their gloves. He stretched the fingers out as far as he could, feeling the joints crack, yet even when a gasp of pain escaped his lips he continued to exert himself, to test the limits of his own body.

  …called to account…

  They would abandon him, Tessier knew, the men who had been so loyal already scattering at the news of Robespierre’s hurried execution. Only now did he regret leaving Jacquet in Harfleur to fend for himself, turning his men away as he sought this final lone triumph. Too late he recognized that he stood alone, halfway between the sea and the scaffold.

  A crash of thunder split the raging sky and Tessier drew in a deep breath. His heart slammed in his ribcage as again and again he thought of the man who had been fastened to the kitchen hook, had been there in the next room. He’d hardly seemed like a spy and less still like a spymaster. No, he was nothing more than one of those inconsequential loudmouths who’d crowded the streets of Paris before the revolutionary flag had flown, polluting the air with the inane chatter, the braying voices, drinking dry their wine bottles and dishonoring the women.

  He was one of the rich men who’d stepped over that child Tessier had once been, one more obstacle on their way to sell themselves to the Lord.

  And even if I am to go to the guillotine, I will burn them before they take my head.

  Let them call for him, send letters and soldiers and the very hounds of Hell, but nothing would take him back there before he had seen them all suffer, had torn the lying tongue from Dee’s very mouth.

  “Monsieur,” a woman said, a gnarled finger plucking at his hand. “Monsieur.”

  Tessier turned to the beggar who crowded him and he hardly hesitated, a silver blade flashing for a moment as it bit into her stomach. Before she had even crumpled to the ground, he was striding away, returning the knife to his coat as he went.

  “My horse,” he instructed the boy with whom he had entrusted the animal. “Now.”

  The child bolted forward and handed him the reins, eyes widening at the small crowd of people who drew in around the stricken woman. Tessier dropped a coin on the ground at his feet and drew himself up into the saddle. Then he turned the black horse to them, the Butcher of Orléans returning as he barked, “Clear the street.”

  For a moment, his command was obeyed, and he pulled back on the reins. The horse reared as he shouted again, “Clear the damned street!”

  The final warning came barely seconds before he urged his mount forward toward the gaggle of filth that blocked his path. Flashing hooves cleared the blood that had pooled around the prone beggar and he galloped through the crowd.

  I have nowhere else to go, though—he turned the horse back toward his own home—so here I will remain.

  Tessier’s transformation from the Butcher of Orléans to a man who could pass unnoticed on the streets of Le Havre was not difficult. He kept up his vigil hour after hour, searching for the party, the diamond with which the queen had tormented him. Still he haunted the taverns, the slums and the docks in search of the playwright and his debauched party, yet still there was no sign. He knew that they would hardly leave without the remainder of their group and neither sibling would abandon the other, but he had that slight suggestion of doubt, a hundred explanations for their absence swirling in his head.

  And no one would sail in this storm.

  In the lane behind the house where he and Sylvie were lodged, Tessier dismounted and bowed his head against the storm that battered him. His feet sank into the sludge, the once feared politician showing no interest in the people who walked abroad on such a night, so swallowed was he by his thoughts. Silently he opened the door of the building and slipped inside, just in time to hear the sound of a child’s voice raised in fury.

  “Get out,” Sylvie’s voice could be heard then. “Get out of here. Go back to bloody Roucelle like Thierry told you.”

  Pace increasing, Tessier threw open the door, eyes growing wide at the scene. The presence of the boy meant one thing. He murmured, “You have brought them here?”

  “He’s leaving.” Sylvie bristled with rage before turning on her son again. “If you’re not out of here by the time I count to five—”

  “We cannot have our whereabouts known.” Tessier slammed the door shut. He dragged Bastien toward him by one arm and searched his jacket for the still-bloody blade. Only then did the Butcher drop his gaze to the pouch in Sylvie’s hand. He whispered, “You have betrayed me.”

  “You’ve got it wrong.” There was fear added to her anger. “I don’t know how he found me—”

  “Where is Dee?”

  Bastien twisted helplessly in Tessier’s grip as he pressed the knife to the boy’s throat.

  “He doesn’t know.” Sylvie’s hand clenched onto the pouch she held. “Let him go, he knows nothing, never has.”

  “Then I will kill him.” Tessier shrugged, the blade already beginning to move.

  “You’d kill your own flesh and blood?” The words, so utterly unexpected, shot from Sylvie’s lips like a bullet.

  “My…?” The word was a whisper and Tessier dropped his pale gaze to look at the boy. The he lifted it again to stare at Sylvie. “He is mine?”

  “Of course he’s bloody yours,” Sylvie, ashen-faced but defiant to the last, spat out. “Who else’s would he be?”

  Tessier froze for a second before he threw Bastien across the kitchen, the child’s head striking the edge of the table with a sickening blow and sending him sliding, unmoving, to the floor. He advanced on Sylvie, glowering. “I have no son, woman.”

  “He’s yours,” she repeated, taking a step back, then another. “I swear it.”

  “You should have—” Tessier shook his head and fell to his knees beside the small, prone figure, seeing now the child he had once been, the child who had no one but a whore mother. It was like looking through a mirror back in time, seeing Vincent Tessier before the world had made him a man. “Why did you never tell me?”

  “Because he’d hold us back.” She raised the pouch. “And now we’ve got the diamond, we can do what we said. He’ll stay with Dee. He won’t get in our way…”

  “You raised my child as a bastard,” Tessier muttered, putting his hand on Bastien’s shoulder for a moment. “Dragging him from house to house behind you as you whored yourself?”

  “I raised him,” a note of affront entered her voice, “as best I could.”

  “With a cobbler, a landlord,” he whispered, rising to his feet. “A cabinetmaker? You left me a student, Madame, but you find me a leader of men.”

  “And I�
�ll leave you again,” she threatened, white-faced and shaking, “and take your precious diamond with me.”

  A duplicitous, lying whore…

  Filth on the street.

  Tessier snatched out and grabbed for her, catching long hair in his fingers. Sylvie gave a shriek, feet skittering on the tiles. He dragged her toward him, hissing her name furiously. He had intended to stab her but it didn’t seem enough, the punishment too quick. Instead he closed his fingers around her throat, squeezing the very life from her.

  “My son, a bastard?” He shook his head, tightening his scarred hands. “I would rather he were dead.”

  Sylvie struggled in his hold, one hand clawing at his in desperation, eyes wide as the realization of what was happening finally sunk in. She tried to speak but no sound came out. He kept tightening his hands until those eyes bulged and grew dim, the woman in his arms suddenly and finally limp.

  With a long sigh, Tessier saw the life go out of her, Sylvie’s struggling body sagging beneath his. When he released her throat, she dropped to the floor with a heavy thud. Tessier remained beside her for a few moments, his gaze fixed on that ashen, still beautiful face, then he reached out and closed her eyes for the final time before turning, shocked to see that the boy was gone.

  And yet the front door has not opened.

  As he snatched up the diamond, Tessier heard the creak of the boards beneath the kitchen table where the little boy had scrambled to safety. He turned to face it, smiling softly.

  “Come out, child,” he called gently. “Why prolong things? Come out and join your mother. Come out or I will burn you as I burned Orléans.”

  When there was no movement, he strode through the door and pulled it shut, turning the key. The fire in the sitting room grate would provide all he needed to burn this house to the ground, the woman and her child with it.

  “Open the bloody door!” The child’s voice was a terrified howl despite his obvious efforts to disguise the fear. “I’ll bloody kill you, you bastard.”

  The word jarred more than it should. He took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment and seeing again Sylvie’s slackening face, the very life leaving her.

  I have no son.

  And this house must burn.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  “That woman,” William muttered to Gaudet, “had better appreciate this.”

  “She won’t.” Gaudet yawned, inspecting his fingernails, though William knew that being in such close proximity to Tessier could hardly be easy for him either. He peered along the dark street and shuddered in the rain despite his cloak, asking, “Where is he?”

  “Perhaps he’s run off with the diamond,” William suggested, though he didn’t believe his own words for a moment. Yet he should be back by now. An uneasy feeling settled in the pit of his stomach.

  Something has gone wrong.

  The door opened and the figure of what looked like a man who had reached the end of his tether emerged. Huddled into a heavy cloak, he moved as though the weight of the world rested on his stooped shoulders. The two men paid him no heed, such a sight hardly unusual in this part of the town. It was as Gaudet was beginning to elucidate for William’s benefit on exactly what he intended to do when they were alone that night that he peered more closely at the building and said, “Oh my…smoke!”

  And smoke there was, far too much of it for a mere cooking fire. William widened his eyes and in the next moment grabbed Gaudet’s hand before they both ran toward the house.

  “That man…” Gaudet turned to stare after the vanished figure before the sound of Bastien’s voice could be heard, raised in alarm.

  The door opened with relative ease, William thanking any powers that were listening as he burst into the house, calling for the boy. He did not have trouble locating him. Bastien was kicking and hammering, desperate to be freed from a room beyond a hallway that was overwhelmed with thick smoke, flames licking throughout the sitting room and out into the street.

  Without a thought to anything other than rescuing the hollering child, William held a hand to his mouth and nose. Breathing as lightly as he could as he reached the door, a rattle of the handle found it well and truly locked.

  “Get me out!” Bastien howled. “Fucking hell!”

  “Your shoulder,” Gaudet fluttered, attempting to do just that with little success as Bastien continued to shout terrified oaths. “Knock it down, chérie.”

  The Frenchman was, William decided, every bit as quick-thinking as he was good-looking. He added his own efforts to Gaudet’s, their combined weight and force causing the door to burst open a few moments later.

  “Help me get my ma,” Bastien told them in a panicked voice, running from the door to the unmoving woman. “He killed her, help me get her.”

  Without a word, William advanced on the child, swinging him over his shoulder and turning more slowly with the burden back to the door to tell Gaudet, “We need to get out. Now.”

  Eyes fixed on the flames that surged into the hallway and cut off their exit, Gaudet froze momentarily. Then, with yet more of that admirable quick thinking, he took off the cloak he wore and used it to bat out the fire that had caught on the rug, providing at least a modicum of safety for their passage as he shouted to William, “Quickly!”

  He didn’t need telling twice and, yelling for Gaudet to follow, he ducked his head, holding the boy as he made blindly for the door. The kitchen doorway was thick with black smoke and the cloak caught alight beneath Gaudet’s very feet. He dashed after William, the beams crashing down behind them.

  The night air was almost painful as William dragged deep, shaking breaths into his lungs, feeling them fill with clean oxygen. He held a struggling Bastien in his arms, relief welling through his heart at the sight of Gaudet, just a little sooty, leaving the burning house behind them.

  “He killed my ma,” the child bellowed, fighting in William’s grasp without much success. “He killed her!”

  “And getting yourself burned along with her isn’t going to change that,” William told him more roughly than he meant, his next words softer. “You’re safe. You’re going to be all right.”

  “I am so sorry.” Gaudet handed Bastien his brandy flask, his voice soothing, compassionate. “Truly, Bastien.”

  “Let’s get him back to the house.” William found his voice just about steady. “We need to tell Dee.”

  The child grew limp in William’s arms, the fight drained from him until he was absolutely still. He clutched William’s coat with white knuckles. Bastien sagged into the embrace, body shaking with soft, uncontained sobs. William met Gaudet’s gaze over that smoke-scented head with its mop of unruly hair, wondering then why life did this to the innocent.

  Why bring such horrors to the people who least deserve it?

  “Let’s get you both to safety,” Gaudet said, offering William a loving look, “and out of the rain.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  It was, Bastien told himself, nothing but a bad dream. He would wake up soon and find things as they should be. There’d be no diamond. He’d be cold and hungry and Sylvie would be telling him off for helping himself to a gentleman’s watch or some other knickknack. All he had to do, he knew, was open his eyes.

  “Wake up,” he muttered to himself as he sat, arms around his legs, on the stable straw. “Wake up.”

  The smell of smoke still lingered about him and he took a deep, wrenching breath. He refused to let the tears escape again, to think of the man Sylvie had named as his father. He would think of none of that, only of waking from this nightmare into the gray, empty gutter of Paris.

  Bastien pressed his face to his knees, closing his eyes tightly. He wondered whether, if he stayed where he was, everything would just vanish. Even better, perhaps he might vanish himself, putting an end to all his problems once and for all.

  At the sound of the door latch lifting, he remained unmoving, willing himself to disappear and be free of all this. He barely heard the sound of boot so
les crossing the earthen floor, hardly felt the straw shift as someone sat beside him, then Adam asked, “What’re you doing all the way out here when you’ve a bed inside?”

  “Not tired,” Bastien managed, keeping his head down.

  “There’s a poodle looking for you.”

  He shrugged in reply, certain the dog, along with anyone else, didn’t care what he was doing or where he was.

  “I’m really sorry about your ma,” Adam told him. “It’s rotten.”

  “She didn’t deserve that,” he whispered, “whatever she’d done.”

  “Nobody deserves that,” Adam agreed in a gentle tone. “I know it’s no help to you now, that it feels as though the bottom’s dropped out of your world, but if you ever need a friend, you’ve got one right here.”

  “A friend?” Bastien wiped at his nose, barely daring to look up at Adam. “I’m not used to friends.”

  “Well…” Adam patted Bastien’s shoulder. “You’ve got this loveable rogue, a sensible fellow and two chaotic gents about town. Not to mention the young Miss Dee, who’s taken a shine to her new best pal.”

  “What’ll happen to me now?” Bastien asked after a long moment. “Where do I go?”

  “I could a use a livery lad at my yard if you fancy a change of air?”

  “In England?”

  “England? Not a bloody chance, lad…Ireland.”

  Bastien let the thought settle for a moment, weighing it against remaining here, alone, living from one stolen mouthful to the next, exchanging the familiarity of the street for what sounded like a settled existence. “What if I make a mess of it? You’d send me back here on my own?”

  “You’d get an extra shift on shit shoveling duty, maybe.” Adam shrugged. “No worse than that, though.”

  “That all?” Bastien peered at Adam, searching for any hint of dishonesty.