“The both of them?” Charité had to ask. That bastard Lewrie was one thing, but his wife was quite another.
“Might be best,” Fourchette suggested with a tentative shrug of his shoulders. “And the coachmen, too. Better they simply disappear and are never heard from again. Hmm?”
“Pity they do not coach towards Normandy or Brittany,” Fouché grumped. “It could be blamed on Royalist bandits, like Cadoudal and his compatriots, reduced to robbery to fund their schemes against the Republic. Ah, well, I suppose the Calais highway must do. You are sure that is their destination, Fourchette?”
“It is what they speak of with the concierge, the port to which they have already sent off their heaviest luggage,” Fourchette assured his chief. “They will travel lighter, departing. Else it would take a second coach, she’s bought so much in Paris. Understandably.”
“I have summoned both of you, who know the man and his wife by their faces,” Fouché continued, “just in case something goes wrong en route. You see, citoyenne, you will be in at the kill, hawn hawn!”
“A thousand thanks, Citoyen Fouché,” Charité said in heartfelt and genuine gratitude, though she had her doubts about travelling with the leering Fourchette. “For that matter, Major Denis Clary, of the Chasseurs, was with me when I spoke with Lewrie at the levee, and he knows his appearance, as well.” She thought she would have to put up with a lot less cloying attention should Denis be at her side.
“Uhm . . . perhaps,” Fouché allowed, leery of involving anyone too official, in uniform, though; of any slip-up that might lead back to the First Consul or the French government. “I sent for another gars, who also has intimate knowledge of Lewrie’s appearance, though . . .”
“Pardon, citoyen,” the meek clerk intruded, rapping hesitantly on the door before sticking his head in. “But that naval fellow you sent for is here. Should I show him in?”
“Ah bon!” Fouché perked up, clapping his meaty hands together and getting to his feet. “Come in, Capitaine, come in! A man from the earliest days of the Revolution, you see? A zealous hunter of aristos and traitors, is . . . but here you are, Capitaine.
“Allow me to introduce you to Citoyenne Charité de Guilleri and one of my best agents, Citoyen Matthieu Fourchette,” Fouche continued. “But of course you and Fourchette have met before, hein? Citoyenne, I give you Capitaine de Vaisseau Guillaume Choundas.”
Charité shot to her feet in sudden, shivering horror as she got sight of the monstrous caricature of a human being, her face blanching. Surely, this . . . this hideux could not be real!
Guillaume Choundas limped into the office, his stout cane tapping on the marble floor, his crippled leg in its stiff iron brace making a dragging swish-clomp, swish-clomp . . . with a leer on that half of his dissipated, twisted, and aged face that he still showed to the world. “Citoyenne de Guilleri, enchanté,” the horror said to her with an evil smile, clumping close to her, flipping his cane to the elbow of his sole arm and reaching out to take her hand as if it had been offered to him, he bestowed a kiss upon it, a kiss that, to Charité, felt like the crawling, maggoty lips of a rotting corpse. It was all she could do to not jerk her hand away, to recoil in disgust from his monstrosity . . . to flee the office and go light candles at Notre Dame and make her confession to a curé in hope of deliverance from one of Satan’s demons!
“Capitaine Choundas, like you, citoyenne, is also a victim who has suffered at the hands of that salaud, Alan Lewrie,” Fouché informed her.
“In . . . indeed, citoyen?” Charité managed to say, stricken with terror and revulsion.
“This is about Lewrie?” Choundas snapped, dropping her hand and regaining the use of his cane so he could turn towards Fouché, a feral gleam in his remaining eye. “Something is to be done?”
“He insulted the First Consul, Capitaine,” Fouché told him. “He is to be done away with. Somewhere lonely and quiet, out of sight on the road to Calais. The three of you know what he looks like, so . . .”
“Sacre bleu!” Choundas exclaimed. “And I will participate in his end? Mort de ma vie, all I have asked of life, for so many years, and it comes to pass? Perhaps there is a God!”
He spun about, more nimbly that Charité imagined that he could, to face her again. “All the ravages you see, Citoyenne Charité, have been at his hand . . . my face, my laming, my lost arm! The ruin of my life’s work! Oui, I will gladly help you murder him!”
Another quick turning to face them all. Swish-clomp!
“But it must not be an easy death for him,” Choundas demanded. “With forethought . . . he must be taken alive. Only for a time, hein?” he specified with an anticipatory cackle. “Give him to me for half a day . . . a full day, and I will take from him what he took from me so long ago . . . and make him beg for death’s release, oh mais oui!”
“That, uhm . . . might be a bit beyond what is necessary,” Fouché hesitantly countered as he fiddled uncomfortably with his loosely bound neck-stock. “We had thought to make it appear as a highway robbery by aristo-lovers and criminal elements.”
“And so it may, citoyen,” Choundas quickly countered, his mind a’scheme as he haltingly paced in anxiety, swish-clomp, swish-clomp. “Is the crime brutal enough, it can be blamed on Georges Cadoudal and his conspirators against the Republic, financed by the Comte d’Artois with Anglais gold, from his lair in England . . . to . . . to foment anger in Britain against France, because their government wants to begin the war again, hein?”
“Their Prime Minister, Addington, pays the Comte d’Artois for a murder of one of their naval officers and his wife?” Fouché scoffed at the notion. “Too complicated. They disappear, everyone in the coach, with no one ever the wiser. The First Consul does not wish a new war with Britain . . . at least not yet. I have his personal, spoken assurance on that matter.”
“His wife, too. Oui, I saw her with him!” Choundas crooned with an evil hiss, shrugging off the quick dismissal of his initial scheme. “If they must disappear, the coachmen, horses, carriage, and all, then an out-of-the-way place could be found where all that could be disposed of . . . an hour or two with her, before his eyes, before I begin on him, and that swaggering lout, that despicable fumier would beg—”
“Ahum!” Fouché pointedly coughed into his fist. “You will be in at his demise, Capitaine Choundas. That must be enough.”
“If you insist, citoyen, then . . . it must be so.” Choundas seemed to surrender—too quickly for Matthieu Fourchette or Charité to believe. Choundas set the exposed half of his face in a wry smile of contentment, but . . . she and the police agent shared a quick, dubious look and an even briefer nod in mute agreement that, if they had to be saddled with this hideous monster, they would have to keep a sharp eye on him at all times . . . and keep his half-insane fury on a tight leash!
I must have Denis with me, Charité de Guilleri vowed to herself; to keep this “hot rabbit” Fourchette from laying his hands on me, and . . . to keep this disgusting beast from killing anyone who denies him his revenge.
A sour taste rose in her throat, a chilly feeling in the pit of her stomach, and a weak, shuddery feeling that forced her to sit down in her chair once more, with only half an ear for Fouché’s plan being revealed.
As dearly as she desired Lewrie to die before her eyes, for her own revenge, still—completely innocent coachmen, Madame Lewrie, and any unfortunate peasant who happened by at the wrong moment must die as well? Callous as she had been over the fates of those taken in the merchant ships by her and her brothers, her cousin, and the old pirates Jérôme Lanxade and Boudreaux Balfa, this just didn’t enflame her former passion or hatred of all things English.
It felt to her, of a clarifying second, as foul as the touch of Choundas’s lips on the back of her hand!
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The hired servants, Jules and Marianne, were paid off, the last funds in their temporary bank account had been withdrawn, and a coach had been arranged for their journey to Calais.
With their travelling valises at their feet, Alan and Caroline waited in the foyer of their lodging house for their coach’s arrival, whilst the concierge and her servants were busy abovestairs; so far as Lewrie knew, fumigating the appartement after being occupied by “Bloodies.”
Yet the coach-and-four that drew up by the kerb outside was not theirs, for a French couple emerged from it with some hand-carried luggage, and began to palaver with the concierge, announcing, so far as Lewrie could follow the conversation, that they wished to take lodging for a fortnight, and would she show them a vacant appartement. Barely had they gone abovestairs before a second coach rolled up, and out of it popped Sir Pulteney Plumb and Lady Imogene, as well as two other couples whom Lewrie didn’t know from Adam and Eve. They also bustled in with hand-carried luggage, as if they would seek lodgings, too.
“The concierge is busy, is she? Good!” Sir Pulteney said with a snicker. “See why we asked specifically what you would be wearing for your departure, haw haw? All ready? Names are not necessary for now, but these fine people are old companions, summoned back to work in our endeavour. All change now, quickly!”
The women, one with sandy blond hair and the other a brunette, had entered in light travelling cloaks over their gowns, their faces and hair obscured by long-brimmed, face-framing sun bonnets. Valises were opened, and the cloaks stowed away in them, revealing that both women wore plain light-grey gowns very similar in colour and cut to the one that Caroline wore. The brunette further produced a wig from her valise, changing herself to a sandy blonde, too.
The men had entered in broad-brimmed hats more suited to a day on horseback, and light riding dusters to protect their suitings. At the same moment, they revealed themselves in black coats, buff waist-coats, buff trousers, and black top-boots. A quick change of cravats to match the dark blue one that Lewrie sported, a change of hats to a taller model with short, curly-brimmed hats much like Lewrie’s, too.
“You’ve both sets of laisser-passers? Good!” Sir Pulteney said to the first couple. “Off you go, then, Thomas, you and your lady and we shall see you in Dover.”
At that, “Thomas,” or whoever he was, picked up his valises and offered his “wife” an arm. They stepped outside into the Rue Honoré, and entered the waiting coach, which, Lewrie could note from a vantage point back in the foyer’s shadows, quite blocked the view of any watchers. The coach clattered off, heading west.
Not half a minute later, a second coach, almost the twin of the first, with a four-horse team of the same colour, drew up, facing the other direction.
“Andrew, you and Susannah next. You’re on!” Sir Pulteney urged, almost shoving them towards the doors. “Last one to the Queen’s Arms Inn pays the reckoning for all, haw haw!”
He tapped his long walking-stick on the parquetry foyer floor impatiently as the second couple of “Andrew and Susannah” exited and got into the coach, which headed east, whip cracking.
“Now for you and your lady, Captain Lewrie,” Sir Pulteney said hurriedly, cocking his head and ears as the rattle of a third carriage could be heard. “Calm as does it. Show serenity and unwitting blandness to the guards at the porte. They’ll have orders to report your passing . . . all of them will. After they allow you to leave the environs of Paris, which I expect they will, for any attempt in the city would be too incriminating, let your coachees proceed at their normal pace. You’ll be using the Argenteuil gate, so you must say that you will be taking ship at Le Havre. We will catch you up on the Pontoise road, before your coach crosses the river Oise, where we shall put into play other measures to throw the authorities off your scent. Now be on your way, quickly! Go with God, and we shall see you shortly!”
Lewrie heaved a deep breath and picked up his valises whilst Sir Pulteney shrugged out of his elegant suit coat, tossed his hat to the sideboard table, and whipped out a white porter’s apron, to play a servant’s role to carry the rest of their luggage to the coach that was, that very instant, drawing rein right by the doors. Lady Imogene gave Caroline a fond, assuring hug, then shooed her out to join Alan, with a last instruction to smile and be gay. “You are going home to England, n’est-ce pas?”
Once inside the coach, though, and under way, Caroline pressed her hands together and shut her eyes as if in prayer, looking wan and pale, whilst Lewrie fussed and shifted on the leather seat beside her, to rearrange his coat and waist-coat, trying to get comfortable.
“Alan . . . ,” Caroline muttered in a fretful, conspiratorial whisper, “will they really let us pass, not snatch us out? Or murder us in one of the poorer stews? We’ve seen them, passing through. Crime is surely rampant in them . . . unremarkable!”
“Still too public,” Lewrie decided, patting her knee. “Casus belli . . . or bellum? Plumb’s right about that, at least. It’d mean war, even if they put me on trial as a spy and slung me into prison. From what Bonaparte said to us t’other day, it sounds as if things’re tetchy enough already. As Plumb says, their best chance’ll be out in the countryside.”
Seeing how fretful Caroline still seemed, he took her hand and gave her an encouraging squeeze. An instant later, and she turned to lay her head on his shoulder, silently demanding to be held, no matter if the sight of one of his former lovers had put her off intimacy the last few days. Nigh sixteen years of marriage—no one could call it “wedded bliss,” exactly—counted for something, he supposed.
“We never should have come to France!” she fiercely muttered on his coat lapel, and he could feel her body shudder at the brink of hot tears of remorse. “I’m sorry I ever . . . !”
“Oh, tosh, m’girl,” Lewrie calmly objected, though his own guts and heart were about to do a brisk canter. He kissed her forehead and muttered into her hair. “It was half my idea, d’ye recall? And . . . if ye dismiss this little problem, hadn’t we a grand time? Well, fairly a good time, in the main?”
Her answer was a tearful snort and a closer snuggling.
“Mean t’say, it’s been me, traipsin’ halfway round the world, havin’ all the adventures,” he cajoled, “and gettin’ paid main-well by King George for it, too. You haven’t had a whiff o’ danger since you whipped Harry Embleton with yer reins . . . or came nigh t’shootin’ Calico Jack Finney’s ‘nutmegs’ off when he burst in on ye and Sewallis when he was a baby. We get back t’England with our scalps, why . . . we could dine out on this for years!”
Caroline uttered another snort, this one tinged with amusement. Lewrie gently tilted her face up to his and kissed her for reassurance, though, to his surprise, that kiss quickly turned to a warm and musky one of passion.
“That’s my darlin’ lass,” Lewrie told her, grinning. “Here now . . . ever do it in a carriage?” he added, to jolly her further.
She punched him in the ribs, almost hard enough to hurt, but . . . she smiled at last; she laughed, even in “gallows humour,” and said, “And I suppose that you have? Don’t answer! Your lewd suggestion is clue enough to your past, you . . . wretch.”
“Well, later perhaps . . . ,” Lewrie allowed with an easy chuckle.
“Uhm, Alan . . . ,” Caroline said, snuggling up to him. “Do you imagine that Sir Pulteney is that capable? Mean t’say, he seems as if he’s done this sort of thing before, he seems to have the connexions, but . . . might he be in league with the French, too? Are we to be his victims? His wife’s French—Lady Imogene was a famous actress during the Terror, and she’d have known a lot of the brutal revolutionaries, and . . .”
“Don’t think we’ve anything t’fear on that score, Caroline,” Lewrie quickly dismissed. “At first, I took him for a ‘Captain Sharp’ who plays on unwary travellers, lookin’ t’skin us broke, but . . . look at all they’ve spent on us. Suppers? Theatre? And if he meant to lay hands on our goods we sent off to Calais, then that’d be a damned bad trade. No, all these matchin’ coaches and horse teams, the clothes the Plumbs came up with at the drop of a hat, and people who somewhat resemble us at short notice? Puttin’ themselves to as much ri
sk as us if they’re exposed? No, I’m beginnin’ t’think he’s the genuine article . . . even if he is daft as bats half the time. We get home, we could look him up in Debrett’s . . . see if he’s authentic.”
The coach began to slow, and Lewrie turned his attention to the environs as they drew up into a line of dray waggons, coaches, and farm carts at the Porte d’Argenteuil.
During the Reign of Terror, under the hideously mis-named Committee for Public Safety, then even later under the Directory of Five, France had become a suspicious police state, fearful of counter-revolutionaries and spies, of saboteurs and each other. Paris, and the great cities, had closed and barricaded their medieval gates completely at night, and only the market carts that fetched fresh produce from the countryside were let out. Travellers not known to locals were instantly suspect, and soldiers of the Garde Nationale or Police Nationale inspected every basket or valise for contraband, bombs, smuggled weapons, or coded messages.
Even now, in the autumn of 1802, the city gates were manned by policemen or soldiers, though passage was usually much easier, even for foreigners, and thorough questionings and searches were a thing of the past. At least Lewrie hoped!
“Buck up, now, Caroline,” he told her. “It’s time to play the snooty English tourists. Bland, serene, stupid . . .”
A Garde Nationale soldier with a musket slung on his shoulder, a sabre-briquet on his hip, and a cockaded shako tipped far back atop his head, rapped on the left-hand coach door, demanding papers.
Lewrie handed them over in a languid, limply bored hand through the lowered window, and the guard, a Sergeant by the tassel hung from one shoulder, moved his stubby pipe from one corner of his mouth to the other, tugged at a corner of his impressively long and thick mustachios, and gave out a grunt. He looked up, locking eyes with Lewrie for a second, then peered into the coach to assure himself that it contained only the two people declared by their laisser-passers.
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