Time for Eternity (13 page)

Lust. That’s what she felt for him. Just lust. Not something she was proud of. But who would not lust after a man possessed of such dark beauty and a body made for sin? That was not to mention that feeling of being exquisitely alive, and totally dangerous.

The package was almost irresistible. He played upon that beauty, that vitality, to get women into his bed.

She was not going to be one of them. Her life and soul depended on it somehow. She’d just resist his siren call. The protection of thinking he wouldn’t be interested in a girl like her was gone. She’d seen the evidence of his desire tonight in the bath. Men like that wanted everything, no matter if it was worthy prey or not.

But a man like that would have lots of female servants around for easy access to those powerless to stop him. He didn ’t.

Perhaps he knew what he was and wanted to avoid succumbing to his worst inclinations. That would mean he had a conscience about seducing women, at least women who were powerless. And she was very sure he had no shred of conscience.

That was why she had to protect herself against him.

Her thoughts flew to the strange bag concealed under her bed. The sharp-edged sword, the many bottles filled with what had to be medicine. The bag wasn’t hers, was it?

The time will come when you must use the contents of that bag.

The thought was almost like a voice inside her. Françoise shook her head to clear it. What could you use a sword for except killing? Françoise was no killer, in spite of the images that had flashed through her mind the other night.

You didn’t kill a man for being attractive. Or even unprincipled. She almost had to laugh as she imagined how awkwardly she would hold that Roman short-sword.

He would certainly laugh at her. And then he’d bat the sword away and …

She turned into the room as she heard movement. Her heart stuttered.

“Come.” She’d recognize that baritone anywhere. “You must hurry.”

“What are you doing here?” Her hand went to her throat. This wasn’t supposed to happen. She didn’t have that sense of déjà vu at all. And that was shocking.

“Madame is ill.” He moved toward her. She heard a clatter in the street below. “She asked for you.”

He had been with Madame? In prison? “Her heart?”

He nodded even as he went to her wardrobe.

“I’ll dress,” she protested.

“No time.” He pulled out an evening cloak and whirled it around her shoulders.

She tied the silken cord with shaky fingers as he hurried her from the room.

By the time they got to the front door, Jean was there to open it. Outside, it had stopped raining. A groom held a great black gelding prancing at the end of his lead.

“No carriage?” She couldn’t ride such a horse.

“No time.” Was that all he could say? He mounted. The groom unhooked the lead and Avignon collected the reins, murmuring,

“Easy boy.” The horse settled. It was really quite amazing. Avignon reached down a hand. It was ungloved. So was hers. She took a breath. Madame needed her. Still his firm clasp on her hand shot sensation straight to her core. Would she ever get over the effect of his touch? He pulled his foot from the stirrup.

“Put your right foot in the stirrup and I’ll pull you up.”

And he did. Effortlessly, turning her to sit in front of him. He had the reins in one hand and the other around her waist. She should have felt insecure sitting sideways like this, but she didn’t. What she felt was his body pressed to hers, all hard planes and muscle.

She had never been this close to a man before. Yet the sensation was totally familiar. His scent wafted over her, spicy, uniquely his, and the electric life that glowed from him seemed to light her from within. The horse clattered over the stones. The night was shiny black and wet. The streets were filling again after the rain shower. Faces flashed past as they thundered through the Marais. They did not turn north toward the Conciergerie, but down to the river through empty streets lined with darkened warehouses. How had Madame gotten here? She must have escaped prison. But how?

At last Avignon drew the horse up in front of an immense stone building with impressive wooden doors twice the height of a man and a crane protruding from the upper story to load freight into wagons. He slid her to the ground and swung down. He cast the reins around a post set for the purpose and grabbed her hand. She ran to keep up with his stride. He pushed open the doors onto an immense darkness. Huge wooden crates and dusty barrels loomed in piles. The place smelled like dust and tar and raw wood and spirits of some kind. Maybe brandy?

Avignon pulled her toward a glow, wending his way between stacks of big spools filled with what looked like lace. They emerged into a clearing in the forest of crates and barrels. A weathered man stood looking down at Madame, who lay on a table next to a desk with a lamp.

Françoise darted to her side. “Madame, are you well?” That was stupid. Her face was like old parchment, her lips so colorless they were blue. Someone had pillowed her head on some sacking. Her eyes looked cloudy rather than their usual piercing blue.

Françoise took her hand. It was cold.

“Glad he brought you, my child,” she murmured. She glanced behind Françoise to where Avignon stood. “Thank you, your grace. A kind act.”

“Nothing of the sort,” he said.

Madame’s eyes crinkled. “He won’t admit to being kind, will he?”

“The wicked duc? I should think not.” The blurring of Françoise’s eyes belied her light tone. “Did … did you escape? But how?

And what has happened to you?”

“My heart …” the old woman murmured.

“You will get better, Madame, I know you will.” She pressed Madame’s hand.

“I fade, child. I haven’t long.” Acceptance filled her voice.

Françoise did not accept. It was all
his
fault. “How could he expose you to the danger of an escape? He was just to speak on your behalf to Robespierre, use his influence.” The wicked duc had killed her friend.

A faint smile touched Madame’s lips. “No one comes out of that prison through influence, dear. Robespierre and Madame Croûte could not afford to give prisoners hope, now could they?” This effort seemed to tire her. She closed her eyes. “I didn’t tell him about my heart,” she managed.

“But you can’t go …”

Madame opened her eyes. “I can’t decline God’s invitation, I’m afraid.”

Tears coursed down Françoise’s cheeks. She buried her face in Madame’s shoulder.

“Promise me one thing.” Madame’s voice was fading.

Françoise sat up. “Anything.” But Madame’s gaze was fastened upon Avignon. Françoise turned in time to see him nod once, curtly.

“Take care of her.”

Avignon’s lips formed a grim line. He didn’t like his hand being forced. And obviously Françoise was an unwelcome burden. But he nodded once again.

Madame’s eyes drifted to Françoise. “And you,
ma petite dindon.
Look deep. Don’t be fooled by what is on the surface, even in yourself.”

“I won’t,” Françoise promised. What did Madame mean? What a strange promise she exacted on her deathbed. Françoise glanced back to Avignon. “Can’t we make her more comfortable? A blanket perhaps?”

Avignon stared at Madame. “Only God can make her comfortable now.”

Horrified, Françoise turned back. Madame’s eyes were open but Madame was no longer there. She had died in the moment Françoise turned away. Could a life be extinguished so … casually? Françoise groped for breath around the sobs that choked her.

Not fair. Not fair at all.

Lord, what did one do with a mere child experiencing her first taste of death? Avignon glanced to Jennings, who rolled his eyes.

Avignon folded his arms across his chest to suppress the impulse to take her in his arms and make soothing sounds while he kissed her blond curls. He didn’t have time to comfort her. He had to get back to Lacaune’s before he was missed. He had planned to be gone only long enough to transport into the prison and back out to the warehouse with the old woman, a moment more to blink back to the gentlemen’s retiring room at the gaming hell. Twenty minutes at the outside.

How long before the guards noticed the old woman’s escape? She was not part of a family. She was his neighbor. People would have seen Avignon, his ward up in front of him, galloping through the Marais to the river tonight. All were things to draw attention to him. Henri hoped Robespierre was not as smart as he thought himself.

Henri cleared his throat. Best move this along. “Jennings, do we have an empty crate? I’m certain Mademoiselle would like to see her friend laid out respectfully.”

Jennings nodded, showing by the gleam in his eyes that he appreciated Henri’s ploy. He disappeared into the shadows. The girl was trying to compose herself.

“Thank you for bringing me.”

“It was nothing,” he lied.

Jennings returned dragging an empty crate shaped pretty nearly like a coffin. Françoise rose and whirled off the expensive evening cape he’d had made for that opera singer and spread it, red silk lining side up in the crate. Henri picked up the frail old body and laid it in the crate. He pulled the edges of the cape in to cover her. The physical husk looked peaceful. He hoped her soul was likewise.

The girl stared down at what remained of her friend. She was so young and looked so fragile, clad only in the sleeveless night shift of finest linen. The fair, blushing skin of her upper arm made him want to touch it. The nape of her neck as she bowed her head was … vulnerable. He could see the outline of her spine where it disappeared beneath the cloth to join the fragile wings of her shoulder blades.

“Jennings, why don’t you take one or two of the men and … find Madame LaFleur a place of rest in the
Cimetière du Père
Lachaise?”

“Right ho, your grace.” Jennings lowered the top of the crate over the dead woman.

“Without a priest or a funeral?” the girl gasped. “Madame would be horrified.”

Henri took a breath before he spoke so his words would not be sharp. He laid a hand on her shoulder to steady her. But his words disappeared in his throat at the feel of her flesh on his palm. It sent shock waves straight to his loins. He tried to keep some semblance of pride as he jerked his hand from her shoulder. She was looking at him very strangely. He swallowed once and cleared his throat. “Priests are illegal, and any kind of a ceremony will draw attention to her, and through her, to us.”

She looked at him with those big, innocent and experienced blue eyes and managed to look both disappointed and accepting of his refusal. Goaded, he turned to the makeshift coffin and bowed his head. He glanced pointedly at the girl and she did the same.

“Lead me from the unreal to the real. Lead me from darkness to light. Lead me from death to immortality. ” He took a breath.

“Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection unto eternal life. I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. We commend the body of thy servant into thy care. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.”

She looked up at him, studying his face. “What was that first part from?”

“The Upanishads.”

She nodded thoughtfully, as if she knew what the Upanishads were. Of course no good Catholic girl knew the Upanishads. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d know the benediction.”

He wouldn’t tell her he’d been a monk for forty years or so in the thirteenth century. He could still recite big swatches of the Bible. “Even Satan knew the Scripture. I know several.”

And then because she made him uncomfortable, he said, just to have something to say, “Can you get this place cleared out, Jennings? We must make room for another shipment.”

Jennings gave a mock salute to make sure Henri knew the question was unnecessary. “Absolutely, your grace. It’s all spoken for.”

When the girl began to peer around her into the shadows, examining the crates and barrels, Henri realized he had drawn attention to something he had no desire for her to know.

“Are all these things yours?” she asked. She rose from where she knelt beside the makeshift coffin and went to finger a bolt of lace. She looked to a barrel clearly labeled SALT.

Well, this was it. No use denying when he’d all but admitted it by giving Jennings orders. Much of elite Paris knew this secret.

“They are.”

She turned to him, blinking. “You’re a smuggler, aren’t you?”

“I’d describe it as being a dealer who doesn’t require taxes to be paid on his goods.”

He saw her processing that. “That’s why you have influence with the new government.”

“The new villains like luxury as much as the priests and nobility who were the old villains.”

Her nose wrinkled in distaste. That’s why dealing in contraband was such a perfect cover. Everyone disdained his activities, even if they craved the results. It wasn’t usually so painful to be despised. “Why would you need to break the law? Avignon is the richest property in France.”

“Avignon is confiscated.” True. True also that he didn’t need its income. But his tenants, now, they were likely to starve if he weren’t sharing the gains from his trade and his wells with them to keep the land in good heart. The chaos the Revolution had created meant that seed and farm implements had become exorbitant. And of course, there was the real reason he smuggled. The ships running back and forth from England. She mustn’t discover how he used those ships. Or the rooms at the back of this very warehouse, concealed behind a brick façade. So let her think he was a callous lout, making hay while the country went hungry.

“But
smuggling?”

“Robespierre’s dependence on my various … endeavors kept you out of prison, my dear
ward.
And it gives you lovely dinners like you had last night. You might show more respect.”

She swallowed. Then she glanced away. “You are right, of course. How stupid of me.”

“Now, I must get you back to the house. Come.” He turned and strode out through the shadowy warehouse.