The Misguided Matchmaker

by Nadine Miller

  “To the church of St. Bartholomew the Martyr. To the Navareil family crypt. He must have a proper burial catholique in a place consecrated by the church.”

  Tristan couldn’t believe his ears. “You cannot be serious?” But he could see from the stubborn set of her chin that she was very serious indeed.

  He consulted his newly acquired gold watch. “It is close on midnight, mademoiselle. Lyon is crawling with Bonapartists, and the mood of the streets is ugly. Can you imagine the kind of trouble we might well encounter if we tried to transport the body of a known Royalist through such a mêlée? Surely there are local officials who attend to such matters, even in times of political upheaval.”

  “The city officials are all Bonapartists and my grandfather’s sworn enemies. They would not bury him in the family crypt, nor even in consecrated ground,” she said flatly. “I have already failed him by not securing a priest to give him the last rites; I will not compound my sins by letting him be buried in ground from which le bon Dieu cannot claim his soul.”

  Tristan groaned. He had spent enough time in France to recognize the importance of such religious strictures to the papists. Ordinarily, he would gladly honor her wishes, but present circumstances were anything but ordinary; Lyon was a powder keg that could explode at any moment.

  “I am sorry, mademoiselle,” he said gently. “What you propose is not only dangerous, it is impossible without a conveyance. I have searched the mews behind the house. Except for one small roan mare, you grandfather’s stables are empty.”

  “There is the gardener’s burrow.” She shuddered, as if the thought of transporting her grandfather’s body to its final resting place in such an undignified manner was too horrible to contemplate. “I do not ask that you risk your safety, monsieur. The church is not far; I can easily wheel the barrow there myself. I ask only that you help me carry him to the garden. If you will do this much, I promise that once I have seen him properly interred, I will go with you to England and my father.” Her voice broke. “There is nothing left for me in France.”

  Tristan gritted his teeth. He couldn’t help but applaud her loyalty to her grandfather…and her courage. Somewhere deep in his soul he even understood the pain she was suffering, but understanding it and acting upon it were two different things. He would not be a party to risking her life, as well as his own, for the sake of a burial ritual. Nothing on earth could make him change his mind on that score.

  Nothing, that is, except her tears.

  Hell and damnation! Before he could make his case, her wounded amber eyes turned into two pools of glistening liquid and a lone tear trailed down her pale cheek and splashed onto the somber gray fabric molding her breast. He had always been a fool where weeping women were concerned, and there was something about Madelaine Harcourt’s tears that he found particularly unnerving. Another teardrop followed the first, and he felt his resolve crumble like a defenseless fortress put to the battering ram.

  He wasted the next few minutes trying to convince her she must take what belongings she needed for the trip to England with her to the church. She flatly refused. “First things first,” she declared stubbornly. “I will take care of my own concerns once I’ve completed my duty to Grandpère.”

  Tristan had two choices; acquiesce to her demands or drag her kicking and screaming to Calais. Grimly, he carried the quilt-wrapped body of the old count to the garden, then trundled the wheelbarrow through the opening in the garden wall and onto the tree-lined street beyond.

  A group of men, in the same ragged uniforms he’d seen earlier in other parts of the city, had gathered outside the gate. They fell silent as the bizarre little funeral cortege approached, but Tristan was alert to the ominous undercurrent rumbling through the crowd. He’d seen such gatherings as this in Paris; it had all the earmarks of a mob spoiling for trouble.

  Madelaine Harcourt walked ahead of him, seemingly unaware of the danger she was in. The lantern she held aloft cast a bright circle of light, but her face was hidden beneath the cowl of her gray wool cloak.

  A young soldier with one empty sleeve pinned to the shoulder of his bloodstained uniform leapt directly in front of her shouting, “Vive l’empereur!” Without pausing in her stride, she pushed back the cowl, letting it fall to her shoulders, and stared the soldier straight in the eye. With a curse, he fell back, and Tristan exhaled the breath he’d been holding.

  The light of a pale three-quarter moon filtered through the bare tree branches above, lending an unearthly beauty to Madelaine Harcourt’s lustrous dark hair and graceful gray-clad form. Head high and eyes straight ahead, she looked every inch a latter day Jeanne d’Arc leading her troops to battle. Miraculously, the sullen crowd parted before her. A few of the men even crossed themselves as she passed.

  With a sigh of relief, Tristan followed her around the corner of the garden wall with his creaking, wooden-wheeled barrow, and onto a narrow cobblestone street that appeared to be empty of demonstrators. They had won the moment; only time would tell if they won the day. Even now he could hear shouting in the distance and what sounded like gunfire—and a reddish glow in the night sky bore testimony to the fact that somewhere in the city buildings were being torched.

  “It is only a short way now, monsieur,” Madelaine Harcourt said. “You can see the church steeple ahead.” Tristan gave a noncommittal grunt. Tightening his grip on the barrow handles, he concentrated on following the bobbing light of her lantern.

  Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a shadow detach itself from the wall and fall in behind him. Every nerve in his body instantly sprang to attention. He looked down to make certain his pistol was safely tucked into the waistband of his trousers; then, glancing over his shoulder, he found a small man with stringy black hair and a face like a worried ferret trailing behind him.

  He took another look. “Devil take it, is that you Forli?” he asked, recognizing one of the Allies’ top agents—a man nicknamed the Oil Merchant because he had gained entry into Bonaparte’s household on Elba by selling olive oil to his mother and sisters. Tristan had worked with him earlier when Forli and he had both infiltrated Fouché’s Ministry of Police in Paris.

  Madelaine Harcourt stopped dead in her tracks. Wheeling around, she stared at him with wide, startled eyes. “Monsieur?”

  Tristan brought the barrow to a halt. “It is all right, mademoiselle. Monsieur Forli is a…friend.”

  “A friend?” Her eyes narrowed, but she turned back without question and resumed walking toward their destination.

  Tristan picked up the handles of the barrow. “What in God’s name are you doing in Lyon?” he quietly asked the little man who had fallen into step beside him.

  “I rode up from Grenoble to send a message to Paris via the semaphore relay—a warning that King Louis and his cabinet that Bonaparte intends to enter the capital by March 20, the birthday of his infant son, the King of Rome. But alas, I was too late; the semaphore is already in the hands of the grognards and by morning, the city itself will fall.”

  Tristan cursed under his breath. The bizarre situation he found himself in was worsening by the minute. “I had heard the Corsican was moving fast; I had no idea he was moving that fast—and gathering support as he goes, if the crowds I’ve seen in Lyon are any example. So what now? Will you ride northward to the semaphore relay at Roanne?”

  “Not I, milord. The climate of France grows too unhealthy. I was on my way south to my parents’ home in Tuscany when I saw you ride into the city. I changed my plans and followed you here. My curiosity was piqued as to what would bring the infamous British Fox to Lyon at this particular time.”

  Forli’s dark gaze slid to the barrow Tristan was wheeling. “Dare I ask why you have become so lost to discretion you have taken to carting the evidence of your political activities about in a wheelbarrow?”

  “This is not one of my bodies, you fool. I am merely helping a lady bury her grandfather.”

  “Ah, the statuesque Mademoiselle Harcourt. My a
ssociate here in Lyon tells me she and her grandfather are well known in Royalist circles.”

  Forli’s beady black eyes gleamed suggestively. “A lovely creature, to be sure. Still, are you not being a bit foolish? Fouché’s power as Minister of Police was diminished when the Corsican was banished to Elba, but now that the tide has again turned against the Bourbons, he will be up to his old tricks. Should you be recognized by one of his minions, your days would be numbered. He has sworn to revive Madame la Guillotine in your honor, as well as mine.”

  Tristan scowled at the little man trotting beside him. “I have heard Fouché’s threat; he will have to catch me first.” His gaze slid to Madelaine Harcourt’s rigid back. Something about the tilt of her head told him she was straining to hear their conversation. “Keep your voice down,” he warned. “The lady believes me merely an employee of her father, which, in this case, I am.”

  Forli nodded. “The very rich British merchant, Caleb Harcourt.”

  “You know Harcourt?”

  “I have never met him personally, but I have sometimes gathered information for him when I was not busy spying for Castlereagh.” Forli’s voice held a note of bitterness. “I will say one thing for him, he pays his debts. I have yet to be paid by the British war office for my stint on Elba and doubt I ever will be now that Bonaparte has escaped—though God knows I warned them often enough that to put Colonel Neil Campbell in charge of the Corsican was like setting a mouse to guard a lion.”

  Tristan nodded his commiseration. He, too, had back pay coming, which he fully intended to collect when he returned to London. Adjusting his grip on the macabre load, he followed Madelaine Harcourt into the courtyard of St. Bartholomew’s.

  Forli stopped outside the gate. “So now you, too, are in Harcourt’s employ, milord. May I ask in what capacity?”

  Tristan considered his answer carefully. He was loath to discuss his plans concerning Madelaine Harcourt; but he might need Forli’s help. “Harcourt has decided to call his little bird back to the nest and he sent me to fetch her,” he said finally.

  “How wise! Without the old count to protect her, she would be easy prey for every unscrupulous roué in Lyon.” Forli’s lips parted in a travesty of a smile. “Farewell then. I wish I could be of help. I owe you. I shudder to think what my fate would have been had you not come to my aid during that fiasco in Paris three years ago.”

  He raised his hand in a brief salute. “Good luck, Monsieur le Renard. You will need it if you plan to cross France in the company of the lovely mademoiselle during these troubled times. I suspect Fouché would enjoy laying hands on the granddaughter of the arch Royalist, Le Comte de Navareil, almost as much as on the infamous British Fox.”

  Père Bertrand, who headed the clergy of St. Bartholomew’s, insisted on reading the brief burial service for the count himself, something for which Madelaine was deeply grateful. If her grandfather was looking down from heaven, he would be pleased; the two old men had been like brothers.

  Many’s the time she’d listened to the story of how the good father had hidden her grandparents from the murderous sans-culotte during the Reign of Terror. More than three thousand Lyonnais were sent to the guillotine during that bloody year, and the count and countess would surely have been among them had they not found refuge in the very vault in which they were now both entombed.

  “Your duty to your grandfather is finished, Madelaine, there is no more you can do for him,” the elderly priest declared as she and the man called Tristan Thibault helped him up the stone steps that led from the vault to the nave.

  “Then I shall leave to join my father in Angleterre as soon as I collect the few things I need to take with me.” Madelaine promised the portly, white-haired cleric who had been a second grandfather to her.

  But even as she moved toward the great oak door that led to the courtyard, it was thrown open by the odd-looking little man who had followed them to the church half an hour earlier.

  “The home of le Compte de Navareil has been looted and burned and the crowd is heading this way,” he cried. “You must flee Lyon instantly, milord. Both you and Mademoiselle Harcourt are in terrible danger.”

  Madelaine’s heart leapt to her throat. It couldn’t be true. Not her home—not everything in the world she owned. She swallowed her rising panic. Not the miniature of her grandfather that was all she had left to remember him by. Too late, she realized she should have listened to Monsieur Thibault when he warned her to gather her belongings before they left the house.

  Hot, bitter anger penetrated the fog of grief numbing her brain. Many of the men who had waited outside her grandfather’s gate were longtime neighbors—neighbors who had hovered like hungry vultures waiting for the hapless prey to die. The same men who just days before had wished her a cheery good morning had now ransacked and burned her home in the dark of night—even threatened her very life.

  Sick with pain, she heard Monsieur Thibault question his friend about her mare and his own horse, which he’d left in her grandfather’s stable. “I saw them being led away by two rough-looking fellows just before they torched the house,” Forli stated.

  “Well, that is it, then. If we must travel by foot, we best get started.” Tristan Thibault grasped Madelaine’s arm in his strong fingers, as if to propel her toward the door.

  Père Bertrand raised a restraining hand. “Hold, monsieur. You are safe here as long as you stay inside the church. The mob will not enter the house of God. Not even in the worst days of the Terror did they go that far.”

  Forli nodded. “The good father is correct. Bonaparte has issued a decree protecting all clerics from harm at the hands of his followers—an obvious bid for support of the church in his efforts to regain his throne.

  Madelaine stared at the orange window over the cleric’s head. Even through the stained glass, she could see the flames leaping from the roof of what had been her home for so many years. She felt choked with grief and despair. “I will not stay in Lyon if I must go into hiding to do so,” she said bitterly.

  Tristan Thibault nodded. “I, too, am anxious to leave, and Bonaparte’s decree could be our ticket to Calais—if you will help us Father.”

  Father Bertrand leaned wearily against one of the marble pillars supporting the vast nave of the church. “I will do anything in my power to help the petite fille of my old friend,” he said gravely. “Still, I cannot like the idea of an innocent young woman of gentle birth traveling without a chaperone.”

  “I am afraid the times are too desperate to worry about propriety,” Tristan Thibault declared in a voice sharpened by impatience. “But if it is any comfort to you, I guarantee I will guard the honor of my employer’s daughter with my life.”

  The priest sighed. “I can ask no more. Take this grandchild of my old friend then, monsieur. Help her to find a new life in a land where the soil is not saturated with the blood of Frenchmen killed by Frenchmen. Tell me how I may help you.”

  “I shall need a priest’s cassock—a large one—and a razor, if possible. Mine is in my saddlebag. Thank God, I kept my papers and money on my person.” Thibault glanced at Madeleine. “And a shirt and trousers such as a young paysan might wear.”

  Father Bertrand’s eyes widened. “You plan to travel as a priest and his acolyte? But is that not risky? What if you are found out?”

  “I think that is less a risk than the one we would face traveling without a disguise.” Tristan Thibault ran his fingers through his unruly black hair. “Thank heavens the priests of your order are not tonsured.”

  His silver eyes swept Madelaine with an assessing look that made her feel as if he could see into her very soul. “But we shall need a pair of shears nevertheless. I believe mademoiselle will make a very handsome boy once we bob her hair.”

  “Bob my hair?” Madelaine heard the shock in her own voice. Instinctively, she reached up to touch her one vanity—the dark brown, waist-length tresses that were coiled in a neat chignon at her nape. She had lost everything else;
now this insensitive lout, who rejoiced that he need not shave his own head, was insisting she must chop off her crowning glory.

  Tristan smiled to himself. The lady’s gesture and her look of abject horror when he suggested cutting her hair were so feminine, so vain, so sweetly vulnerable, that he felt the first glimmer of hope for success of his thankless mission. He’d almost begun to think he was transporting a bloody saint back to London to become his brother’s wife—a fate worse than death for any man, to his way of thinking. But she was just an ordinary woman after all.

  With Forli’s help, he finally convinced her of the logic of his plan. Then, with Father Bertrand in the lead, they trooped into the rectory to do the deed. In tight-lipped resignation, Madelaine seated herself on the stool provided, removed the kerchief she’d worn on her head when she’d knelt at the chancel rail and then one by one the pins from hair.

  Tristan felt his breath catch in his throat as the gleaming silken mantle spread down her back to graze the curve of her slender hips. Suddenly the shears the priest’s housekeeper had pressed into his hands felt like instruments of torture. He stared at them, nonplussed, unable to bring himself to use them to mutilate such beauty.

  “I will cut it if you wish, milord,” Forli said with an eagerness that raised Tristan’s hackles. “My father is a barber; I know something of the trade.” Prying the shears from Tristan’s rigid fingers, he proceeded to whack off the lustrous tresses just below the lady’s ears with a few swift strokes.

  Tristan stared at Madelaine Harcourt’s white face and tightly closed eyes, then at the mound of dark brown silk curled around the base of the stool and felt a terrible urge to throttle the little man who was busily snipping away at what was left of her once glorious head of hair.

  “C’est fini!” Forli stepped back to admire his work as Madelaine Harcourt’s eyes opened and instantly sought Tristan’s, asking his opinion of the results. Coward that he was, he turned away, loath to face her lest she read the truth—that with her butchered hair jutting out in every direction, she looked remarkably like a porcupine about to throw its quills.