by Shana Galen
Perhaps the damned bracelet was cursed after all…
“Got it,” Ramsey said. Smooth as silk, he slid his drawer open. She should have continued to work on her own lock, but she was too curious. What did Robespierre keep in his desk? She glanced over Ramsey’s shoulder and saw paper. It was in neat stacks, meticulously organized. Ramsey lifted the pages, searching underneath. “No bracelet.”
With a sigh, she went back to her lock. Please let it be in the desk. God, please let it be in the desk. She knew Paris had outlawed God in favor of the Supreme Being, but what was one more law broken tonight?
“These papers,” Ramsey was saying.
“Mmm-hmm.” She continued to concentrate on her lock. Almost there…
“They’re full of names, lists of names.”
Snick.
She wanted to jump for joy. Instead, she did a little dance in place. She heard Ramsey chuckle and glanced at him. He was stuffing papers into his coat. “What are you doing?”
“I’m taking these.”
“I can see that. Why?”
“These are the lists of the condemned. These might even be those slotted for the guillotine tomorrow.”
She watched as he shoved more papers into his coat. “Do you think taking those papers will save them?”
“No, but it might slow the government—if one could call these bloodthirsty monsters a government—and give the prisoners a little more time. Perhaps your Pimpernel can get them out.”
“Perhaps.” She watched him for another moment, cramming papers into his bulging coat, and flattening them so no one would know of his theft. She would not have thought Ramsey a man who cared about the lives of people he’d never met in a Paris prison. She couldn’t have said why she thought he was helping her, but she had never thought it was out of altruism. Now she wasn’t so sure. There might yet be sides to Ramsey she didn’t know.
Gabrielle went back to her drawer, sliding it open. Unlike Ramsey’s drawer, this one did not contain any papers. It did hold several boxes. She lifted one, shook it, and heard a rattle inside. Her heart kicked in her chest. This might be it. She tried the lid and found it secured tightly.
The keyhole was tiny. It would take her precious minutes to pick.
“You found something.”
She nodded. “Locked, of course.”
She heard him mutter about the curse, but at least he was wise enough not to speak the words aloud. “I’ll start on another drawer and leave the delicate work to you.”
She nodded and continued to work. She hated these tiny locks. They were dainty and easy to damage. Then she’d have no choice but to break the boxes, risking the contents inside. She was not opposed to stealing them, but they were not small enough to hide on her person.
Suddenly Ramsey grabbed her arm.
“What are you doing?’ she hissed. He’d just destroyed countless minutes of her hard work on the lock.
“You hear that?”
She stilled completely—her breathing, her body, her heart. In the distance, she heard faint voices. “Someone is coming.”
“Bloody hell! That damned cursed bracelet!” He jumped to his feet, ran around the desk, and extinguished the lamp she had lit.
Gabrielle was already climbing under the desk. “I hope it’s not Robespierre,” Ramsey said, joining her. He was large and his shoulders jammed into her. She tried to make herself small, and then gave up when he pulled her into his lap. She ducked her head to keep from hitting it on the underside of the desk. It was an uncomfortable position, but at least they were both out of sight if anyone opened the door and peered inside.
The door! She must have drawn her breath in sharply because Ramsey said, “What is it?”
“Did you lock the door again?”
“I don’t recall. You came in after me.”
She couldn’t recall locking the door either. Should she go back and lock it, risking being caught if whoever was quickly approaching down the corridor should chance to open the door? If it was Robespierre they were done for. Ffoulkes had promised he would be gone from midnight until two, but even the Scarlet Pimpernel couldn’t control Robespierre. If the man had changed his mind and returned early from whatever appointment he had…
But if it wasn’t Robespierre…If it was someone looking for them, they might notice Robespierre’s door unlocked and come in to investigate further.
“I’m going,” she declared, crawling off Ramsey’s lap.
“Gabrielle, no!”
But she was already running lightly for the door. She thanked God for the soft carpet muffling her steps, because she could hear the voices now, coming closer and closer. She had to tiptoe at the door. The rug was not so large as to reach it, and she did not want them to hear her there. The men were right outside the room she and Ramsey had hidden in earlier. She could hear its door open, and footsteps as the man—the footsteps were heavy—walked inside. There were two sets of footsteps in and then they retreated.
So they were looking inside offices. She was at Robespierre’s door now, and she reached for the handle. It was locked with a key, and she already had her hairpin in her hand.
She had never locked something before—only unlocked. She inserted the pin and heard the door to the office next to her close. They were coming. She had mere seconds. She refused to allow her hand to shake. She refused to hear the footsteps approaching, hear them stop outside the door. She turned the pin—silently, oh so silently—in the lock. She thought she felt something give, but she couldn’t be certain. And then the men were outside the door. One reached for the handle, turned it, and she sank back into the wood behind the door. Her heart pounded so hard she feared they could hear it through the thin walls. She could almost feel Ramsey staring at her. She had just either doomed or saved them both.
The handle jiggled but did not turn. Thank God! She had locked it. But then, in the flickering light from the hearth, she saw the hairpin. She hadn’t had time to pull it from the lock, and now it was falling.
It would clink against the wood, making a soft sound. Would the men hear it, or would it be too faint? Gabrielle couldn’t risk it. She dove across the door, reaching her hand out and catching the pin at the last second. She froze, stretched out on the hard floor, hand aloft, until she heard the men moving away. She didn’t dare breathe for several long moments.
Finally, she crawled back to the desk. Ramsey was already working on one of the desk locks again.
“That was close,” she breathed. She was shaking violently and had to give herself time to recover before attempting that small box lock again.
“Too close. I’m telling you—“
She grabbed his coat and turned him to face her. “If you so much as even think about that curse again, I will rip out your heart and stuff it down your throat.”
He raised a brow, his mouth quirking in a suppressed smile.
She pressed her lips together. “Sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”
“Fear, panic, desperation.” He rubbed her arms up and down. His touch felt good, comforting. “Later I’ll show you a better way to take out your aggressions.”
“I—“
His mouth on hers silenced her. He gripped the back of her neck, holding her still as he plundered her with his lips. His tongue caressed her, and she was so shocked she didn’t think to protest. She opened her mouth, and the sweet assault continued. She shivered when his tongue stroked hers, and when he withdrew she leaned into him for more.
“Later,” he whispered, his forehead touching hers. “Now the bracelet.”
She nodded and lifted the small box she’d been working on. Her hands were no longer shaking, and she lit the lamp and began the delicate process of finessing the lock. When it was finally hers, moments after Ramsey opened another desk drawer and found nothing, she lifted the lid and angled the box into the light. Inside was a ring, a royal seal, and a small packet with the words Hair of my wife, sister, and children that had been written in an ele
gant hand.
She lifted the ring then abruptly dropped it onto the floor.
“Is that it?” Ramsey asked.
“No.” She was patting the carpet furiously, searching for the fallen ring. Her hand closed on it, and she lifted it back to the light. “I think this is something even more valuable. King Louis’s ring.”
Ramsey leaned close, and she showed him the engraving.
“This should have gone to the queen or the dauphin.”
“I’m sure that’s what the king intended. It would have been some comfort to them, locked in the tower all these months.”
“All of these items look as though they belonged to the royal family, to the king.”
She nodded. “That’s what I was thinking. Strange that Robespierre should be in possession of them, and not the National Convention or the Paris Commune.”
“Strange but telling. The bracelet must be here.”
Those were her thoughts exactly. She replaced the king’s ring, hoping someday one of his children would receive it. She had no hope the queen would survive to take possession of it. Cries for her execution rang in the streets.
“Give me the larger of the two remaining boxes.” He pointed to the open drawer. “I’ll pick this lock and you do the other.”
They worked in silence for what seemed hours. The clock chimed one, but her hand remained steady. Finally, the latch above the lock sprang open. She closed her eyes, resting them for a moment, then said a quick prayer.
Please, please, please.
The box’s lid was made of wood inlaid with ivory. She eased it open and saw a velvet pouch lying against the wooden interior. She lifted it, opened the pouch, and a heavy cuff fell into her palm.
She could feel Ramsey’s gaze on her. She held the bracelet to the light. Blue sapphires gleamed on the cuff, interspersed with the brilliance of diamonds. The cuff itself was gold, the little clasp delicate and fine. Gabrielle turned the cuff toward the light. In the center was a gleaming stone, bright and clear like a diamond.
“Le Saphir Blanc,” she whispered. “We found it.” She angled it toward him. “Do you want to see?”
“This is close enough.”
She glowered at him. “I can hear you thinking about the curse.”
But he was already closing the desk drawers and setting everything to rights. Gabrielle placed the pouch in her pocket. Did she just imagine its warmth against her skin?
She replaced the box in the desk drawer, closed it, and straightened the already neat desk. Blowing out the lamp, she rose and reached for her skirts, intending to dust them off.
“Breeches are far less trouble, I imagine,” Ramsey said.
“If I could only get used to wearing them.”
“And now we look for a place to hide until morning and the curfew ends.”
“We need to get off this floor. If Robespierre returns tonight and discovers the theft, they will search the building.”
“I’d like to leave the building,” he said.
“Too risky with the patrols about. We should find a closet or an unused room in the cellar.”
He winked at her. “Sounds romantic.”
“It sounds dusty and filled with spiders.”
He took her hand. “But they’ll be our spiders.”
She rolled her eyes. As long as there weren’t any rats. She could abide any type of spider or other creepy-crawly, but she would not share quarters with a rat.
At the door, Ramsey stood and listened. Taking the hairpin she offered, he dealt quickly with the lock. Gabrielle stood to the side to allow him what light the fire offered, but he waved her gesture away. “Sometimes the dark is useful. I see the lock in my head.”
She did as well. Sometimes she even closed her eyes when she was working. She didn’t know if she wanted to share these traits with Ramsey. It seemed every day she discovered she had more in common with him than she thought.
And yet he still hadn’t explained the woman in the Palais-Royal to her. And that wasn’t all. There was something else he was hiding.
He rose and turned the latch on the door, peering out into the corridor. “It’s clear.”
“Should we lock the door again?” she asked.
“It will take time.”
She didn’t like being out in the open, but she hoped to conceal their theft from Robespierre as long as possible—at least long enough to deliver the bracelet to Citoyen Toulan at La Force.
He bent, going to work on the lock. It was quick work now that he knew it so intimately. The lock snicked back into place, and Ramsey took her hand. She imagined her boy’s disguise would make the two of them look strange should someone come upon them. Ramsey led her the opposite way from which they had come. At the end of the corridor, they found a set of stairs and started down. These would lead to the back entrance, but she hoped to follow them all the way to the cellar and hide there until morning.
Dawn was hours away, and with Ramsey’s warm hand in hers, it was not hard to imagine how they might spend the time. They reached the ground floor and turned toward another set of stairs, leading to the cellar, when the door opened and a man stepped out.
Gabrielle blinked, recognizing him from a drawing she’d seen on pamphlets in the Palais-Royal—Joseph Fouché, a Jacobin and member of the Convention. He was a particularly ruthless member, if the accounts in the Times were to be believed. She wondered briefly exactly what he had been doing in the cellar before Ramsey yanked her arm.
“Run!”
Chapter 15
It was the bloody curse of the bracelet, and nothing could convince Ramsey otherwise. He all but yanked Gabrielle off her feet and dragged her to the door leading out the back of the Hôtel de Ville. Fouché was yelling something at them, but Ramsey wasn’t particularly interested in republican speeches at the moment. He was more interested in saving his neck from Fouché’s favorite razor.
He burst into the cool night air, pulling Gabrielle along with him. At this time of night, there were no guards at the back of the building, but all it took was for someone to yell, and the patrols already conducting domiciliary visits would come running. As Ramsey and Gabrielle ran from the lantern light and plunged into the darkness of the street, Fouché did just as Ramsey feared.
The sound of dozens of boots behind them spurred Gabrielle to run faster. That was Ramsey’s first instinct as well, but he slowed her. “Where are we going?”
“I don’t know! We must find somewhere to hide.” She had her hand clutched over the bracelet in her coat pocket. Ramsey would have liked to throw it into the Seine, which wasn’t far, but he glanced around him instead.
They stood in a patch of darkness, but houses with lanterns spilling waves of light were all along the street. Step into one of those pools, and they’d easily be seen. They could crouch between the houses, but out in the open, their chances of evading the patrols or the national guard, should they come running, were slim. All it took was for some concerned or patriotic citizen to look out of his window and call out.
Gabrielle squeezed his hand tighter. “They’re coming.”
Indeed, the first members of a patrol were rounding the corner just down the street where Ramsey and Gabrielle had paused. Ramsey took one last look around. “There!” He took her hand and began running.
“A church?” she panted. “All the priests who wouldn’t swear loyalty to the republic have been arrested. Our friend Fouché saw to that. If there’s a priest in there, he won’t help us.”
At this point, Ramsey was just hoping the doors weren’t locked. He raced past a large elm and up the steps. The church was of limestone, as were most of the buildings in Paris. Its structure was Gothic style with three styles of columns on the facade. An old church, then. This had possibilities.
If they could get inside.
He tried the door, found it locked, and swore.
“They’re headed this way,” Gabrielle told him. “I don’t think they’ve seen us…yet.”
“Step back.” He pushed her to the edge of the stairs and off to the side.
“Why—wait! You can’t kick the door in!”
He backed up another pace. “Why not?”
“This is a house of God!”
“I’ll worry about him later.” It was either kick in the door or die under the blade of the guillotine. God would understand.
He hoped.
Ramsey charged the door and kicked hard. With a crash, the heavy wooden door flew open.
“We’re damned for certain now.”
“I was already damned.” Ramsey grabbed Gabrielle and pulled her inside, slamming the door shut behind them. He would have locked it, buying them time, but the lock was twisted now and there was no way to secure it. “It won’t take the patrol long to figure out where we’ve gone.”
“We need a place to hide.”
Old churches had dozens of hiding places. Ramsey ran inside, guided by candlelight in the sanctuary. A huge organ dominated the front of the sanctuary. “What about in there?”
“Why not? Let’s find the stairs.”
They ran to the back of the sanctuary, through the doors, and encountered only steps going down. The organ steps must be behind the pulpit. “Damn it!”
“Should we go back?”
“No time.” He took her hand and dragged her down the steps. They encountered an old cellar filled with dusty crates and stacks of moldy books. Vestments hung on one side, already showing signs of deterioration. Now that the Cult of Reason had taken God’s place, few dared to attend church anymore. Though the candles burning in the sanctuary were testament that not everyone had given up on God.
“There’s nowhere to hide!” Gabrielle said, panic in her voice. He knew why. He too had heard the sounds of footsteps in the sanctuary above them. “It won’t take them long to realize where we’ve gone.”
Trapped. Ramsey wished he’d thrown the cursed bracelet into the fire when he had the chance. Now he moved the vestments aside, making a small place for them to crouch, then paused when he saw the wood plank on the floor. He unlatched it and lifted it. A cool, musty breeze floated up.
