by Tracy Grant
“Self-consciously clever and convinced one has attained great maturity? It sounds like it. Anything else?”
“Another letter from Aunt Mathilda in Shropshire detailing his cousin Susan’s lying-in and cautioning him not to catch a chill in the dreadful London damp. Pens, ink, pen knife, writing paper. I’ll try the chest of drawers.”
Charles carried the lamp over to the trunk. He lifted the lid to release a faint scent of lavender. Clean, starched shirts, neckcloths, drawers with frayed seams. Waistcoats that were beginning to fade, one with cracked buttons, another with a torn lining. The trunk did not seem as deep as one might expect. Charles ran his fingers over the lining. The bottom snapped away.
In the hidden compartment beneath were the possessions of Julien St. Juste, agent for hire. Coats of cassimere and superfine, a greatcoat of merino wool with a velvet collar. “Our friend’s been in Paris, and recently, judging by the cut of his coats and the lack of wear," Charles said.
Beneath the clothes he found a box containing spirit gum and false moustaches, side whiskers, and beards. Crimson silk cords. He stared at them for a moment, images of his wife impossible to ignore.
He turned his attention to a collection of medals belonging to several foreign countries, probably forgeries but too expert for him to be sure in the meager lamp light. A pistol and powder bag. Knives of varying lengths. Pouches containing a variety of dried powders. One seemed to be some sort of opium derivative. The other two were odorless. He pocketed them for Mélanie to examine.
Something lay coiled in the corner beneath the bags. A length of ribbon in peacock blue silk, torn at one end. For a moment, the blood stilled in his veins. He ripped a seam in the side of my gown and tore off one of the knots of ribbon. That didn’t necessarily prove it had come from the gown Mélanie had worn in Paris ten years ago. She’d said St. Juste had been fond of blue and from all accounts he’d had a list of paramours to rival Don Giovanni’s. And yet— He held the ribbon to the lamp. He saw Mélanie the night he’d proposed to her in Lisbon, her hand gripping the metal balcony railing, the peacock blue stuff of her gown catching the light of the moon. Mélanie was clever about remaking her dresses. He'd lay odds the gown she'd worn in Lisbon was the one from Paris three years before. He could see it clearly. The sparkling beads round the square neck. The drape of fabric across the bodice. The knots of ribbon at the shoulders. One no doubt replaced after St. Juste had ripped off the original.
He coiled the ribbon back up and put it in his pocket with the powders. The ribbon and its implications could be examined later. Still no sign of papers. He ran his fingers over the lining of the false bottom and at last felt a telltale crinkle. He tugged at the silk lining and it came away in his fingers, loosely tacked to the frame of the trunk. Too loosely. Had the man whose search they’d interrupted been here before them?
If so, he hadn’t taken his discoveries with him. Beneath the lining was a stack of papers. “If you’re finished with the chest of drawers, come take a look at these,” Charles said, carrying the papers and the lamp over to the writing desk.
“So far my most interesting discovery is a bottle of excellent cognac.” Roth joined him at the writing desk. The loose sheets of paper were creased as though they’d been much folded. Charles spread the first out. A jumble of characters met his gaze, block capitals grouped together with the odd number thrown in.
"Can you break it?" Roth asked. This was not the first time he and Charles had examined a code together.
"Not without a great deal of work.” Charles flipped through the pages. More coded symbols, written in at least four different hands. "And I suspect it's a book code, which means we've precious little chance of breaking it without the book or books."
"There are a few books here—Latin and Greek mostly. The sort a tutor might have."
"We'd best take them with us.” Charles continued to flip through the papers. All were in code, until at the bottom he found what appeared to be a laundry list—shirts, handkerchiefs, sheets, pillowcases—written in yet another hand, fastened with a metal clip to several more sheets of paper. The laundry list had been torn four ways across and then glued together.
"What the devil—" Roth said.
"Rescued from a waste basket," Charles said. "Spies are constantly sorting through debris. In Vienna, agents for almost every country spent hours piecing together the contents of diplomatic wastebaskets. I can't tell you how many times I was asked to decode papers that turned out to be no more than a bill from the bootmaker’s or a menu for a dinner party. But if St. Juste saved this—"
He removed the clip, carefully, so as not to damage the glued pieces, and examined the papers beneath. The contents of the laundry list had been copied onto the first paper. Beside it were a series of jottings which Charles recognized as the notes of someone struggling to decipher a code. A rough table was sketched on the next paper. On the third paper, each line of the laundry list had been transformed into a place name and date. Lancaster, 3 November; Long Eaton, 11 November; Nottingham, 8 December; Clitheroe, 14 December; Rochdale, 22 December.
"Apparently St. Juste decoded this," Charles said. "And thought it important. The question is why?"
Mélanie descended the steps of the St. Ives house, the image of her first meeting with Oliver and Isobel Lydgate imprinted on her memory. A sun-splashed parlor, Isobel with their daughter in her arms, Oliver with their son on his shoulders. She had known a shock of unfamiliar longing at Isobel and Oliver’s easy camaraderie, Isobel’s complete assurance of who she was and where she belonged. Only a fortnight ago she had gone with Isobel to choose hangings for the masquerade, sat in Isobel's sitting room writing out cards of invitation, poured over menus spread out on her gilded escritoire. Last week they had gone to the dressmaker together for a final fitting of their gowns. Last night she had stood beside Isobel in the cold garden, looking down at the floating form of the dead man who was probably Isobel's lover. And never guessed.
She stopped, gripping her skirt taut against the wind, and glanced at the watch pinned to the bodice of her pelisse. Only a quarter hour until her meeting with Hortense. She cut through a mews and a garden with a conveniently unlatched gate, doubled back along Charles Street to make sure she wasn't being followed, and then made her way along Piccadilly and into Hyde Park through the Stanhope Gate.
Three o'clock was well after the crush of morning riders and before the late afternoon promenade. On a gray, drizzly day, the park was almost deserted. She zigzagged along the gravel paths to the Grosvenor Gate. A slate blue carriage with a pair of bays was drawn up just inside the gate. Mélanie waited until a brewer's dray blocked the view from across the street and then approached the carriage.
The coachman sprang down and lowered the steps. As he opened the carriage door, Hortense leaned forward, the veil thrown back from her high-crowned bonnet. "Thank God," she said. "I knew I could depend upon you."
The coachman handed Mélanie into the carriage and closed the door, encasing them in the smell of supple, oiled leather and the soft glow of the interior lamps.
The carriage creaked as the coachman swung onto the box and gave the horses their office. "I told him to drive round so we'll attract less notice," Hortense said.
"You've remembered."
"I may be an amateur compared to you, but I'm not a novice at intrigue any more.” Hortense gripped her gloved hands tight together. "Have you learned anything?"
"A number of things, though it's difficult to make sense of them. Hortense, when did you last hear from Raoul?"
Hortense's blue eyes widened. "At Christmas. He sent a gift for the boys. He always does. Is M. O'Rourke—"
"Apparently he was at the ball."
"You saw him?"
"No. The popular theory is that he was there to meet St. Juste. They appear to have been working together."
"Mon Dieu, to do what?"
"We don't know. Raoul's got links to revolutionaries in Ireland, to those who opposed the mon
archy in Spain, to former Bonapartists in France—"
"Oh, no.” Hortense inched back against the squabs. "If I knew of any plot— Dear God, I'm not sure I would tell you. But I don't know of any such thing, Mélanie. I swear it. Do you believe me?"
"Very nearly."
Hortense gave a quick smile. "Thank you. From you, that's quite an admission of trust."
"But just because you haven't heard of a Bonapartist plot doesn't mean there isn't one," Mélanie said.
"M. O'Roarke hasn't contacted you?"
"Not since last autumn.” Mélanie shifted her position, trying to get a better view of Hortense's face in the dimly lit carriage. "Before all hell broke loose last night you were going to tell me what brought you to England."
Hortense plucked at her skirt. The fabric had a sheen that caught the lamplight, while her face remained in shadow. "Julien St. Juste came to see me in Arenberg two months ago."
Mélanie stared across the carriage at the friend—a far older friend than Isobel Lydgate—she had just said she trusted. "What?"
"Don't look at me like that, Mélanie, I lied to you last night about having seen him, but it's not what you're thinking."
"Go on."
"I hadn't heard from him since Maman died, and that was only a brief note of sympathy—written in code on the flyleaf of a book. But two months ago I was walking in the garden and he suddenly appeared beside me, dressed as a gardener, with gray hair and a beard and I'd swear a good three inches off his height. He said he'd come to warn me."
"About?"
Hortense lifted her gaze to Mélanie's face. Even in the shadows, her eyes were haunted. "He said he was about to embark on a mission that might prove more dangerous than usual, and he felt impelled to clear his conscience first. I know it's absurd to think of St. Juste having a conscience, but the way he said it I found myself believing him."
"He had that knack. Clear his conscience about what?"
"He'd undertaken assignments for the British. You know that. He always worked for the highest bidder. Apparently during one of these assignments, certain papers had fallen into the hands of a Lord Carfax. He's—"
"England's spymaster. Papers about what?" Mélanie asked, though from the fear in Hortense's eyes she was quite certain she knew.
"About Saint-Maurice-en-Valais eight years ago," Hortense said.
Chapter 14
I need you in Paris. A personal errand for JB. She asked for you specifically.
Raoul O'Roarke to Mélanie Lescaut
25 May, 1811
Malmaison
June 1811
The corridor was shadowy as it had been on Mélanie's first visit, though the dim outlines of paintings and velvet benches and marble tables now had the shape of familiarity. The pounding fear of two years ago had given way to the tightly wound excitement that always accompanied the start of a new mission. Along with the certainty that it was bound to be more complicated than anticipated.
The footman—the same footman from two years before—flung open the double-doors beneath the bee pediment.
Josephine, in white as always, came forward, her hands extended. "Chérie. I knew we could depend upon you."
Mélanie took the Empress's hands and leaned forward to accept her embrace. The scent of roses and the warmth of a hand on the nape of her neck brought an unexpected flash of what it might be like to still have a mother. Absurd. She blinked and drew back.
As she stepped away from the Empress, she saw a man sitting in the shadows. The candlelight picked out his polished boots and fair hair and glanced off the finely molded bones of his face.
"Mlle. Lescaut.” He got to his feet with leisurely, controlled grace and inclined his head with a bow that stopped just short of irony.
"M. St. Juste.” Mélanie returned the nod to the exact fraction of an inch. "I'm flattered you remember."
"On the contrary. You left an indelible impression."
"I'm not as clumsy as I once was."
Julien St. Juste smiled. "You were anything but clumsy, m'amie."
Josephine's gaze flickered between them. "I fear we have little time for reminiscences. How much did Raoul tell you, Mélanie?"
"Only that you had need of my services, and it was likely to take some weeks."
"Yes.” Josephine raised her voice a fraction. As if on cue a door opened at the back of the room, and a man and woman stepped through. The golden-haired woman was Hortense de Beauharnais Bonparte, whom Mélanie had last seen in this same room two years ago. The tall, dark-haired man at her side Mélanie recognized as the Comte de Flahaut. She had met Flahaut once or twice in Raoul O'Roarke's company. Aide-de-camp to the Emperor, said to be the illegitimate son of the former Foreign Minister Talleyrand. Known for his amorous conquests, including the Polish beauty Anna Potocka and the Emperor's sister Caroline Murat. And now, rumor had it, Hortense Bonaparte.
The way the couple stood, shoulders brushing, supported the rumors. When they stepped forward, Flahaut put a protective arm round Hortense's shoulders and angled his head toward her as though he feared she might break. Her full blue skirts swayed back, clinging to the rounded curve of her belly.
"Mademoiselle Lescaut.” Hortense looked straight into Mélanie's eyes. "You see I am in a predicament."
The blue eyes set in the porcelain face contained an unlooked for courage. Mélanie bit back a curse, even as she found herself smiling in an attempt at reassurance. "Tell me what I can do to help."
Josephine lifted a sheaf of papers from a porcelain table. "Your travel documents. We have given it out that Hortense is going to a spa in Switzerland and then to stay with her brother Eugène. Instead she will travel to a retreat we have arranged in the Illes Borromées."
"I will join her there," Flahaut said in a firm voice.
Josephine glanced at her daughter's lover for a moment. "As we discussed. You will accompany her, Mélanie. M. St. Juste will be on hand to assist you. He will see to any necessary documents and to covering your tracks."
"I'm sure between the two of us, Mlle. Lescaut and I can manage the matter," St. Juste said.
Mélanie met his gaze across the candlelit room. "Quite."
I have a lowering feeling I should have foreseen this. I know how Josephine always valued St. Juste. Have a care, querida. Personal feelings can surface at the most inconvenient moments and play the very devil with one's plans.
Raoul O'Roarke to Mélanie Lescaut
Salamanca
21 July 1811
You might treat me with a little more respect, Raoul. When have I ever let personal feelings interfere with anything? Besides my only personal feelings concerning Julien St. Juste are pique because he bested me. In any case he has been all cool professional. He assures us he can cover our tracks so no one will be able to determine Mme. Hortense's whereabouts. Much as I hate to admit it, I have no doubt he will succeed.
The days here are not unpleasant. I had never been so far north nor seen the Alps. Aix is quite lovely—a white town nestled on green mountains above a blue lake. It has that restful, decadent air of a place designed more for holiday-makers than permanent residents. Mme. Hortense and I walk along the lake or venture on some of the easier walks into the mountains. One day we hired a boat. We spend the evening at cards or the pianoforte. She has a fondness for theatricals and produced many plays at her stepfather's court, as I'm sure you know. We've been amusing ourselves by picking a play each evening and dreaming up how we would produce it. Tartuffe this evening. Odd, as you've often remarked, how one can find one has things in common with the most unexpected people…
Mélanie dipped her pen in the inkpot and stared at the glistening black liquid. A cool breeze from the lake drifted through the open window. This mission had its compensations. She didn't envy Raoul the dust of summer in the Spanish plateau. She pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear. A plaintive Bach sarabande came from the adjoining sitting room, picked out with skill though an occasional false note betrayed the p
ianist's preoccupation.
Mélanie lifted the pen and drew the nib clean. She was used to summing up the status of a mission for Raoul, analyzing the risks, calculating the odds. Here there was deceptively little to report on the surface. And yet an uneasy, unarticulated part of her mind warned that she faced risks she was in no way prepared to deal with.
A drop of black ink splattered on the cream laid paper. Not that it mattered. She'd have to burn this version as soon as she'd translated it into code. Perhaps—
The music broke off. The screech of fingers slamming against keys was followed by a cry like that of a wounded animal. Mélanie dropped the pen and flung open the connecting door.
Hortense sat at the pianoforte, arms on the lid, face buried in her hands, shoulders shaking. Mélanie sat beside her and dropped an arm round her shoulders. "Querida, shush, it's all right.” The words came without thinking. For a moment, Mélanie was fifteen and the sobbing woman beside her was her eight year-old-sister in tears over a broken doll or a scraped knee.
She felt a thud through the muslin folds of Hortense's gown. The baby kicking.
Hortense's hand went to her abdomen. She tried to speak, choked, tried again. "I don't think I can do it."
"One never knows what one can do until one faces the choice."
"No one should have to face this choice."
"No.” Mélanie pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and pressed it into Hortense's hand. "It's not something I'd wish on anyone."
Hortense dragged the handkerchief across her eyes. "Could you do it?"
Mélanie started to frame an easy acquiescence, but the words died on her lips. "I don't know."
"The awful thing is that when I found out—a part of me was happy. I know it's mad, but I wanted this baby. His baby."
