Daughters of the Storm (17 page)

Pierre's hands fumbled beneath her cloak and caressed her breasts. Marie-Victoire tried to say something, but stopped as pleasure stole through her body. His lips moved to her neck and he kissed the bare skin, sending strange sensations down her spine. Pierre's knee moved between her legs and he reached to lift up her skirt. For the second time in her life, Marie-Victoire felt a man's fingers move between her legs, only this time they searched so softly and sweetly that she ached for more. She shifted slightly to help him and gasped as he touched her moist flesh.

Suddenly her stomach cramped and she pushed Pierre away. Taken off his guard, he released her at once. ‘What...?' Stumbling out through the door, Maire-Victoire was ignominiously sick outside. Retching, miserable and numb with the shame of it, she tried to apologise. ‘Sorry... sorry...' But Pierre held her close and wiped her mouth with the corner of her cloak.

‘You should have told me,' he said, amused at her distress.

Encouraged by his tone, she looked up into his face. ‘It was the beer. I am not used to it,' she explained.

‘I can see that,' he replied. ‘I should have taken more care of you.'

At precise moment, Marie-Victoire fell in love with Pierre. Amongst the stink and the refuse of the dirty courtyard, her feelings blazed into life, so shaking her with their arrival that she cried out.

‘Pierre.' Unable to say any more, she hid her face in his shoulder.

Touched by her cry, Pierre kissed her damp head and murmured words of endearment, amazed that he was enjoying comforting Marie-Victoire when only a moment ago he had had every intention of seducing her.

‘I'm sorry,' she said at last.

Pierre laughed. ‘Don't think about it. it doesn't matter.' He held her carefully and added, ‘Nothing matters, Marie-Victoire, except that you come and live with me.'

‘Live with you?'

Marie-Victoire was as surprised as Pierre at his suggestion. He hadn't meant to say them. Now he had. ‘Of course.'

He was growing excited by the idea.

‘You must leave the Hôtel de Choissy. There are plenty of things we can do to earn a living.'

‘But...'

‘Marie-Victoire! You trust me, don't you?'

Her golden-lashed eyes shone up at him.

‘I think with my life,' she said gravely, and knew it to be true.

‘Well, then. Now is the time. Think. With all that's happening around us.' He swept out an arm to embrace the city. ‘We must take a chance. The old days are over. We are part of the future. We can be free. We can be independent and together.'

She leant against him and, for a moment, allowed herself to dream. What Pierre suggested made sense. It seemed so simple and so right. It was also so final.

‘Don't,' she said. ‘I must think about it.'

Pierre was a little nonplussed.

‘But you
will
think about it,' he urged. He had never made such a suggestion before to any woman, and, used to easy conquests, he was disappointed by her response.

‘It would be difficult to leave Madame Héloïse. I owe her much and my family have been with theirs for a long time,' she tried to explain.

‘Enough,' said Pierre. He wanted to kiss her again and banish her doubts.

They stood a moment longer and then, hand in hand, they walked back down the cul-de-sac. They were talking so hard that they did not at first see the figure that rose out of the gloom and into their vision.

A man stood in front of them and blocked their way into the street. Tall and cadaverously thin, the hunger-shadows under his eyes rendered them large and brilliant in contrast to the drawn cheeks beneath. Dressed in virtual rags, his linen fouled and his shoes in tatters as they might be, Jacques Maillard drew enormous satisfaction from Marie-Victoire's anguished sob of horror and alarm when she recognised him.

‘I've found you at last,' he said. ‘I promised myself I would.'

‘No.'

Marie-Victoire shrank back. Pierre placed an arm around her and held her tightly.

‘Who are you?' he demanded.

‘Ask the woman,' replied Jacques. ‘She will tell you I am an old friend.'

‘Get out of our way,' snapped Pierre.

‘Not until I have told Marie-Victoire what I have to tell her.'

Marie-Victoire's voice rose. ‘Pierre, I don't want to listen. I don't want to listen, I tell you.' She was desperate to make him understand that Jacques meant nothing to her. That she didn't want him, now or ever. Pierre understood the message and attempted to push past Maillard.

‘Marie-Victoire,' said Jacques, wearily, for he had not eaten for a day.

Despite herself, Marie-Victoire paused. His voice brought back echoes from the past, and a sharp and sudden nostalgia for her childhood. Perhaps, after all, she owed Jacques something?

‘Please wait,' she said to Pierre.

She stood in front of Maillard and clutched at her cloak.

‘Where have you been all these months?'

‘In Paris,' he said shortly. ‘It is easy to disappear. Just as, in the end, it was easy to find you.'

‘Are you well?'

He shrugged. ‘Well enough.' He thrust his hands into his pockets. ‘No, better than that. I like it here. I fit in and my friends suit me. We think alike and we know what we want. We agree that one day the de Guinots and their breed will disappear. It can't be soon enough as far as I am concerned, and then we will take their place. Meanwhile, I live in different places and I make myself useful in the Cordeliers and in the Hôtel de Ville. I am becoming known for my views. “That Maillard,” they say. “He will stop at nothing.”'

‘What is it you want?' Marie-Victoire had heard enough.

‘You,' he said simply. ‘Come back to me.'

Marie-Victoire could sense Pierre's astonishment and knew that he was bristling. For herself, she was not surprised. Her fears were correct. Jacques had not let her go.

‘You have no right to ask that,' she said, nevertheless, with a heavy heart. ‘I owe you nothing, nor do I wish to see you. Our friendship is over.'

Maillard gave a short exclamation.

‘Marie-Victoire,' he said, with an obvious effort, so softly that Pierre could not hear. ‘What I did to you was in madness. I am sorry for it. Truly. Can you not forgive me?'

For a second, she was back lying in the long grass by the vineyard at La Joyeuse, feeling her fingers dig into the earth beneath her. She remembered the long nights when she had been tormented by the memory of what had happened. It was enough.

‘I can forgive you, just. But I can never forget.'

Maillard raised his hand to his eyes. It was shaking.

‘Enough,' Pierre intervened. ‘Whoever you are, you are not wanted. Clear off.'

Maillard lowered his arm and Marie-Victoire sensed the second before he moved what he was about to do. She gave a cry of warning just as Maillard sprang forward. Pierre dodged to the left and Maillard went sprawling on to the cobbles.

Maillard scrambled back to his feet and launched himself once more at Pierre. This time Pierre met him head on. The two men locked together. They swayed backwards and forwards, cursing at each other.

‘Leave my woman alone, you son of a bitch.'

‘She's
my
woman now.'

‘She's mine.'

‘Haven't you got the message? Can't you see she doesn't want you?'

Their breath came in pants and their feet slid over the freezing ground.

Shivering with fear, Marie-Victoire watched them. Pierre was thicker and better-fed, but Maillard was maddened by anger and she knew his strength from bitter experience. Maillard's fist connected with Pierre's cheek and the sound of bone on bone cracked like a pistol shot into the air. Pierre staggered and almost fell before renewing his attack. Gradually, he gained the upper hand and forced Maillard back against the wall. Under the impact of his blows, Maillard weakened, until, completely dazed, he ended up clinging for support to an old tethering ring set in the wall.

Pierre hit him viciously one last time and then stepped back.

‘That will teach you, you scum,' he said through clenched teeth, and rubbed at the bruise that was already discolouring his cheek.

Fighting his dizziness, Maillard raised his head.

‘You will pay for this,' he spat at Pierre, between breaths. ‘I will remember you.'

Marie-Victoire tugged at Pierre's arm. ‘Come away, he's dangerous.'

Maillard threw a look at her.

‘Remember also, Marie-Victoire, that I have twice asked you for mercy and you have refused. I swear that I will be even with you – with you both.'

He let go of the iron ring and slumped on to his knees, his sharp shoulder blades outlined clearly through his torn jacket.

‘Jacques.'

Swept by sudden pity, Marie-Victoire ran to kneel beside him. He pushed her away, his face distorted by rage, and she recoiled, regretting her impulse. Pierre helped her to her feet.

‘Come,' he ordered. ‘He's insane.'

She looked down at Maillard. ‘You have been stupid and unwise, Jacques,' she said. ‘But I will try to forget it. Don't come looking for me again. Goodbye.'

She did not stay to hear his reply, but took Pierre's arm. They walked rapidly towards the street and disappeared into the night.

Half-concealed by the shadows, Maillard swore to himself. Eventually, he pulled himself to his feet and stumbled, painfully, in the direction of his lodgings.

It was only a matter of time, he told himself. It was only a matter of time.

Chapter 3

As Jacques finally disappeared into the street, a second figure detached himself from a doorway from where he had been watching the drama with interest. He stood for a moment, a tall man nondescriptly dressed in a merino brown suit which had seen better days topped with an old-fashioned tricorn hat.

William shook out the ruffle at his wrist, took a grip on his swordstick and cast a wary glance around him. You could never be too sure. His mouth curved in a smile, compounded as much of pity as of amusement. He had no wish to spy on such intimate scenes as the one he had just witnessed. His object had been merely to follow Maillard and see what he was up to. Maillard was the sort of man his government wished to know about – an explosive mixture of naivety and discontent, ripe for political extremism. So far, William had been correct in his assumptions. Maillard had been mixing with radical company whose doctrines were calculated to appeal to a man searching for a cause.

He had been tipped off about Maillard by a contact he had made in the Cordeliers section. Maillard had been throwing his weight around in the section headquarters and not everyone there liked it. He had trailed Maillard, dodging into doorways and freezing on street corners as Maillard, in his turn, tracked Marie-Victoire. William was puzzled as to the connection, then he remembered that his informant had told him that Maillard had once lived on a de Guinot estate.

His professional detachment had been shaken by Maillard's humiliation, and he sympathised with Marie-Victoire's obvious anguish. Poor girl, he reflected, she was so young. He would have liked to warn her that she was embarking on a well-trodden path: a brief flaring of love, inevitable maternity and the gradual extinguishing of passion and energy as the struggle to survive took over. Like many ambitious men, William supposed he would escape such a fate.

His fingers were stiff with cold inside their cloth gloves and his skin felt taut with cold. William decided that his investigations could be concluded for the night. He had obtained enough material and, besides, he had an important appointment, a report to draft and an engagement that he wanted to keep. He consulted his watch and began to walk in the direction of the Palais de Justice.

At the gates of the Palais, he watched the torches inside the wrought-iron gates. Behind them, the towers of the Conciergerie prison dimmed into nothingness as the sky blotted them into the winter night. Here and there a few lights shone in the window, otherwise it was lifeless. An uncharacteristic desolation gripped him. William had been away from Paris for well over eighteen months and the atmosphere on returning had been a shock. He had gone south to Toulon to reconnoitre the naval establishments and to complete the line of agents that he had set up through the country. He had fallen seriously ill there of a fever which had left him so weak that he had taken six months to recover. By then, one of the chief agents in the southern network had disappeared, William had never discovered why, and he had been forced to begin all over again. It took time and patience to piece a network together. But now it was done and he had returned the previous week to a very different city from the one he had left. Paris, he now felt, contained an animal force – the product of a pent-up anger and unsatisfied ambitions – and it was terrifying.

A guard emerged by the gates and challenged him. William debated whether to hail a fiacre and decided that the exercise would do him good. He crossed the river and walked north, stopping occasionally to take his bearings, and emerged at the Châtelet. As he passed, a carriage turned into the prison near by. A young woman alighted, sobbing, and was escorted through the doorway. William stared after her thoughtfully. This was not the first arrest he had seen. The question was: were the authorities under Général Lafayette keeping control or were they being ousted by their radical colleagues?

An hour later he emerged from the Place Royale and hailed a cab. He had changed his shabby brown suit for a double-breasted striped coat and white breeches, striped stockings and a high, flat-topped hat of the latest design. William was once again Mr Jones from Virginia.

The gardens of the Palais Royal were situated off the Rue St Honoré, and, as befitted one of the most popular venues in Paris, they were full of noise and movement. Lights burned in the booths under the colonnade, and pedestrians, hurrying across the courtyards or ambling in search of diversion, called out greetings. The cafés were enjoying their nightly trade. From the Café de Foy floated strains of
Ninon,
the popular song of the moment, and at number 79 William could hear Desmoulins and his friends reading from their latest political writings. Lurking under the arches and by the fountains were cutpurses, pickpockets and whores. They were waiting for the big houses to disgorge the rich prey who flocked to the Palais Royal on their way to card parties, soirées and the opera. William brushed aside a girl with a sore-encrusted mouth who plucked at his elbow.