She wanted that life. After the death she’d witnessed tonight, his feeling of intense life called to her as never before. He swung her into the saddle. Her hip was pressed into his groin, her shoulder to his chest, as she sat sideways on the pommel of the saddle. The rise of it rubbed right against her most private parts. Her arm just naturally slid around his taut waist to steady herself, even as he held her close and gave the horse the office to start.
They said nothing. He probably felt nothing. But for the second time tonight, she felt … everything. She was full to overflowing with the strange and the familiar all mixed up together; the feeling of impending doom, the inevitability of it all.
“Look deep,” Madame had said. Why? Did she think Françoise saw people only on the surface, even herself?
Maybe she was talking about Avignon. Françoise had always thought of him simply as the wicked duc. But he had actually tried to rescue Madame. Not the way Françoise had intended. But neither he nor Madame thought using influence would take the trick. So he’d engineered an escape from the Conciergerie. That took far more energy and frankly, probably put him in more danger than she intended. Would she have pressed him if she’d known she was asking him to risk his life? It had all turned out badly, but after her first shock, she couldn’t blame him. She could only marvel that he had attempted it at all.
She’d been surprised too when he pulled the cloak so tenderly about Madame’s body. But the real shock had been the benediction he’d said to spare Françoise’s feelings. He might have just hustled her away without any solace. He might have told Jennings to dump the coffin in the river, instead of sneaking into Cimetière du Père Lachaise and burying Madame. His actions tonight were … kindness. There was no other explanation.
Had she been wrong about the wicked duc? That question echoed through every part of the fullness inside her. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Things had gone off track, perhaps dreadfully wrong.
Something hard pressed into her hip. It was his erection. Part of her was not quite so appalled that he might desire her. Part of her was depressed that she was not appalled. It seemed as though she were drifting toward him and there was nothing she could do about it.
This time the trek up through the Marais was slow. The movement of the saddle with the stallion’s rolling gait rocked against her woman parts. How far to the Place Royale? She’d be moaning and begging him to use her if she couldn’t get out of this dreadful position soon.
At first, she hardly noticed that they were attracting attention. Yet, late as it was, there were loud jests and guffaws along their course. People didn’t see a duc and a half-naked woman on a horse every day. Avignon saluted the hecklers as though everything they were thinking was true. How could he?
When they finally arrived at the house, she slid down and dashed through the door Jean held ajar while Avignon dismounted and tossed the reins to a groom. She was fairly humming with need. It was almost as if she were humming with life.
Something inside her roused itself. Avignon was still a horrible danger to her, regardless of his kindness tonight. Bad things would happen if she allowed herself to care about him. It would ruin her entire life. She had to take action.
Yet if one couldn’t change fate, what use to resist? Madame’s death proved that what would happen would happen. She found that so depressing, it started the tears again.
She shot a glance back to Avignon and saw a look of … consternation on his face. He did not enter the house, but simply nodded to Jean and said, “See that Mademoiselle has a brandy. She has had a shock.”
And then he turned on his heel and left.
Just like that.
He must be going back to his evening of gaming as though Madame had not died or was going to be buried by an Englishman who was probably a Protestant in the dead of night without a priest. Just as though he had not said a benediction over Madame’s body.
The man was impossible, and she’d best realize that, and get hold of herself.
Henri materialized in the recesses of the cloakroom at Lacaune’s. Tonight had been a disaster. Nothing had gone according to plan. Not only with the escape, but also with the girl. He’d nearly spilled his seed in his breeches during that ride from the Seine to the Place Royale. Her hip ground against his groin with every step Dauphin took. The feel of her body underneath that ridiculously thin night shift was pure torture. He’d had to hold her in place, hadn’t he? Did she realize her breast bounced on his forearm when Dauphin broke into a jog? He must not let her close. He more than anyone knew what would happen if she found out his real secrets.
She’d hate him on sight and scream his secrets to the world. She was an innocent, for God’s sake.
He really had to make a visit to the Rue Lesparre tonight. He’d spend himself in some woman he didn’t care about and that would make him proof against the girl. In his very house! There would be no respite from her. He’d journey down to Avignon for a week or two if he didn’t need to be filling up his warehouse with “cargo” again. The next best thing was to spend some time in brothels. And he’d better do it quickly. He’d take a cup of blood into the bargain just to make sure it wasn’t hunger that itched in his veins. If only it were that simple.
As for the rest of the disaster, he’d repair what he could. He had already tried to confirm the gawkers’ opinion that he was just out on a sexual lark with her by saluting them and smirking. He could also give himself an alibi for his absence from the gaming rooms. Perhaps no one would even notice Madame LaFleur’s escape. The guards were notoriously bad at counting prisoners in the crowded cells. Still …
He stepped through the rows of cloaks and shelves of hats carefully. The pretty, buxom cloakroom attendant hummed to herself as she brushed a tricorn hat. Lacaune’s was the most popular gaming hell in Paris because of two simple house strategies. The play was honest and the staff was composed of comely females.
He called his power. Companion, he thought. Power surged up his veins. A magenta stain dripped over his field of vision. He didn’t need much power to accomplish this task. He reached out and touched the attendant on the shoulder. The girl squeaked in surprise and turned …
And he caught her in his gaze. Her eyes went blank. He slid an arm around her to support her and kissed her thoroughly so that her lips would be slightly swollen if anyone cared to look. He liked kissing, but he took no pleasure in such a one-sided application of the process. When he finished, he mussed the curls escaping from her exaggerated coiffure and pulled several strands free from the tiny mock-tricorn she wore (in red and blue, of course) to mollify the new gentry. They liked to lose their money to one another and to the house here, just as the old nobility had.
“I have been here for the past hour,” he whispered. “We dallied together. You had the most pleasure you have ever experienced.” He might as well let her add to his reputation, unearned though it might be. If anyone ever asked her, which he hoped they would not. He crumpled the satin of her dress, and tore a corner of the lace at her bodice—lace Lacaune’s had probably bought from him. Just enough that it would be noticeable if someone were looking for it. Then he let her go.
The reddish tint faded from the room.
“La,” she said, blinking. “You take a girl’s breath away, milord.”
He raised her hand to his lips. “Until we meet again.”
She gave a slow seductive smile. “Anytime you like, milord.”
He gave a smile he hoped was not a grimace. Another female mooning over him. One he would never let close to who he really was. Then he slipped out to the gentlemen’s retiring room to adjust his appearance before entering the main gaming salon. People expected to see him without a hair out of place.
He strolled into the large, comfortably appointed room. Chandeliers dripped glittering light on red and gilt. The women, clad in low-cut gowns and those silly little tricorns, moved among the tables with food and drink and new cards. Men crowded round the baize-covered tables in
the center playing faro and baccarat. Every card table was filled. Only the place he had vacated an hour and a half ago was still empty.
“Avignon, old beast,” General Digne called. “Where have you been?”
“Er … busy, General.”
“How will we win our money back if you keep disappearing?” The general had grown more interested in gaming than in leading armies since soldiers now felt they could vote on the general’s strategy before each battle. Equality made for poor military outcomes, and the French armies were beleaguered on all sides. Which made the general want to spend his time in Paris and leave the actual fighting to his lieutenants. One in particular, a Corsican nobody named Bonaparte, seemed able to inspire the recruits as the general could not.
The others around the table were equally keen to take their revenge on Avignon. Rustau was a minor dignitary in the new government. St. Martine was a remnant of the old nobility so ancient he could not bring himself to emigrate. Romaine? Now what did Romaine do? Ahhh, yes, he ran some of the less savory coffeehouses that fleeced the sans-culottes of their coins in games of chance while giving the new poets of the Revolution a stage to read tracts and dogmatic poetry. Normally Avignon struggled to lose to his fellow gamblers. People thought much more kindly of people who lost money to them. But it was hard work. Vampires were notoriously lucky at any game of chance. It had something to do with the positive energy of the Companion. And then of course, he had some skill. He’d had hundreds of years to develop it.
But tonight he was in no mood to lose. He sat at the table in front of the pile of chips he’d left. “Well, gentlemen, let’s see what you can do.”
She was in a dark place that had no walls, no ceiling. Even the floor was obscured by rising mist. Every direction was like every other, so there was no place to run.
And she must run somewhere. There was something very frightening in this space with her, something that would do more than rend her limb from limb. It would damn her for eternity. She started to run, not knowing whether she was running away or toward her deepest fear. She ran until her heart was pounding in her chest and her breath wouldn’t come. She wouldn’t be able to run forever, but the monster would pursue her unto death and beyond. Even now she knew it was behind her. She fell, and struggled up …
And there! A gladiator’s short-sword gleamed in the light like pure salvation.
Or damnation.
She stood, slowly, unable to turn away from the gleaming sword. And then she heard boot heels clicking across a surface she couldn’t see. Terror gripped her. Grab the sword, she thought. It’s your only protection.
But she didn’t. She couldn’t. Because she wasn’t sure the sword would save her. Using it might change her beyond recognition. She turned to face her nemesis.
Avignon walked out of the darkness, looking as satanic as ever. His hand was bleeding.
Françoise woke, gasping. She couldn’t even scream. Slowly the room resolved around her. The darkness wasn’t featureless. The wardrobe loomed. The chair sat next to the dressing table. She cowered in her bed in the room she had been given in number sixteen Place Royale.
Slowly she became aware that she was drenched in sweat.
Then another feeling began to creep over her.
The sword. She could feel that sword in the bag under her bed like a squat and evil presence in the room. Something inside her wanted her to use it for the worst of purposes.
She scrambled out of bed, breathing hard. She couldn’t sleep with that thing beneath her. She stood there, chest heaving. She couldn’t imagine crawling under the bed to retrieve that leather bag in the dark. She’d sleep in another bedroom.
But what would the servants think? She didn’t want to advertise her … Well, the kind word would be “whims,” but some might call them something else. Incipient madness, maybe.
Was she going mad? That feeling of fullness and impending disaster, the certainty that everything she did she’d done before … was that why she imagined she already knew what the naked due would look like even before she saw him?
There were no answers to her questions. No way out.
She crawled up into the wing chair that crouched before the cold grate and curled up to make herself as small as she could. There were forces at work here she didn’t understand. And they might just tear her apart.
Eight
“Too lucky by half tonight, Avignon.” St. Martine tossed back a brandy, too many for the evening. “No one has luck like that.”
Henri ignored the implication. “Why, I thought it was skill.” One of the girl attendants scraped his winnings into a pile with a small rake.
“A kind of skill,” St. Martine muttered.
“You’re drunk, man.” General Digne was surprisingly always the peacemaker. “Don’t say things you’ll regret. Avignon loses often enough. And he doesn’t need the money.”
“If you object to being fleeced, stop buying his goods,” Rustau remarked. “Playing cards with him is the least of our problems.”
“Ahhh, but we all like what he provides too much for that,” Romaine remarked. “Tonight is just is the way of the tables. Some are up, some are down. We will soon be up again.” He was the philosopher of the group.
St. Martine was about to respond in an unfortunate fashion when the double doors to the grand salon burst open with a bang. Soldiers marched in and spread out.
A hush fell over the room. Henri glanced to the door to see Robespierre, the tidy martinet of a man, marching in behind his henchmen. Henri continued putting the coins into equal stacks that could be wrapped into roulades.
“The declaration that gaming is an antirevolutionary activity was clearly posted.” Robespierre glared at those members of his own government salted around the room. Some colored, some stuck their chins out in defiance. Someday, Robespierre would not be able to keep his own in line. You couldn’t suppress everything without having something give way.
“Where is the owner of this establishment?”
“Here, sir.” Lacaune stepped forward.
“Arrest this man,” Robespierre ordered. Soldiers moved in to do his bidding. Damnation. Lacaune was an honorable man, and there were too few of those, no matter their trade.
Henri felt a spring inside him coiling. Uncoil it, he told himself. You can do nothing here.
“I am certain you citizens want to contribute your winnings to the revolutionary cause.” Robespierre had such a prim voice. Was he really so tightly controlled? Or was he afraid that the violence and sexual urges within would unleash themselves and destroy him in the eyes of the world? Perhaps both. Henri wondered what Robespierre’s sex with his mistress was like.
Murmurs of protest broke out around the room. Henri retrieved some roulade papers left on the table and started wrapping his gold. When each man had “contributed” he was allowed to go, though Robespierre dispensed lectures liberally during the proceedings.
Henri lounged in his chair, his winnings now stacked in neat roulades before him. At last Henri was the only guest remaining besides the soldiers. The little man came and stood in front of him. The employees gathered in a nervous clump near the baccarat table.
“Foucault, I might have expected you to be here.”
“But you did not? How odd.”
“Report has it that you were absent for some time in the middle of the evening.”
“I come. I go. Even I can’t keep track of me.” He was going to brazen it out of course, but the man had a purpose for asking. Not good.
“Well, there were some other surprising events tonight.”
“I am agog to know,” Henri murmured in his most bored voice.
That goaded Robespierre. “Well, you should be. Because there aren’t enough prisoners in the Conciergerie tonight.”
“Are there ever enough prisoners for your taste?” Henri inquired politely.
“I mean that one escaped.”
“However would you know in all that crush?”
“Because we heard a scream.” Robespierre smiled like the proverbial cat. “And screams always portend an escape.”
“I take it you have made a study.” Henri let his tone imply that he could care less about screams. But if they had jumped to that, it would make his job harder. He often had to return to the same cell twice or three times to get an entire family.
“And this particular escape was most interesting. It wasn’t like the others.”
“The others? Dear me. I didn’t know you were so careless with prisoners.”
Robespierre frowned. “The others were families. This was an old woman. Your neighbor in fact.”
“Madame LaFleur?” Henri put up his quizzing glass to examine the little man. He had the satisfaction of seeing him squirm a bit. “You let her escape your clutches?” He shook his head in dismay. “Hardened criminal that one. I hardly feel safe knowing she’s at large.”
Robespierre’s lips tightened. “I’d like to know where you were during the time you left the premises tonight, Foucault.”
“Left? But I never left.” The quizzing glass came down.
“Then where were you for the period between …” He referred to a small notebook. “Ah, approximately one and two-thirty A.M.?”
Henri glanced to the huddled employees and smiled. One girl smiled back. “Ask her.”
Robespierre stared at him. “You … Right on the premises?”
“In the cloakroom.” Henri began loading roulades into his pockets.
“Those winnings belong to the state.”
Henri glanced up. “Oh, surely not. What would Madame Croûte do for lace?” He disposed of the last roulade. “By the way, why ever did you tax salt and brandy? No one can afford them now. And you know how French like good brandy and good food. And of course there’s the clean water you and Madame Croûte both love so much.”
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