Elizabeth Boyle (23 page)

Sophia gave in rather than start another disagreement.

Her head pounded from her battle with Giles. They’d spent a good two, three hours arguing over her plan to rescue her family. And in the end they’d reached a stalemate.

The morning promised to see the fight continue, until she’d convinced him there was a prayer in hell that under the right circumstances and despite the warrant for her arrest, her incredible plan just might work.

“Emma,” she whispered. “Are you awake?”

“How can I sleep? Your little sister told me smoking was vulgar and all but ordered me to put away my pipe.”

Sophia laughed softly. “And did you?”

“Yes. The little brat threatened to complain to your aunts the moment she returned to England. You’ll have your hands full with that one when you get her home. If she doesn’t happen to
accidentally
fall over the ship’s rail during the crossing.”

“I know what you mean. You didn’t hear what she nearly said in front of Giles.”

“I heard, all right. The entire pitiful story. You are truly a wicked sister to wrench her away from the man she loves. She’ll never forgive you.” Emma chuckled.

“
Maman
did the same thing to me when I was nearly fifteen. I had a rather unsuitable affection for one of the gardener’s sons. That was when I was sent to Versailles.”

“Did you forgive her?”

“Yes, eventually.” Sophia remembered when she forgave her mother. It had been the moment she’d fallen under the spell of Louis Antoine Saint-Just six months later. His dark clothing and ardent passion had inflamed her fifteen-year-old sensibilities.

She’d learned only too late that Saint-Just had none of the strength of character that surrounded a man such as Giles like an ancient knight’s armor.

“Well, I suppose Lily will forgive you,” Emma commented.

“In time.”

Emma lit up her pipe, the familiar scent of her tobacco filling the small room.

“Giles offered me a house,” Sophia whispered. “A place for me and the children.”

“How generous,” Emma commented. “Is he going to put it in your name? That was always my mistake. I never got it in my name before I said yes.”

“Emma!”

“Well, he intends to make you his mistress, am I correct?”

“Yes, I would assume that’s the arrangement he has in mind.”

“Then get the house in your name,” her friend advised.

“And what name do you propose I use?”

The pipe glowed with a furious puff. “That is a problem.”

“That isn’t the only problem,” Sophia said. “I think I’m falling in love with him.”

Emma rolled over and stared at her. “I can see that falling in love with the man you are supposed to marry would be a problem.”

“Oh, you know what I mean. He’s in love with her, with the Brazen Angel, or La Devinette, or everyone else, but he’s not in love with Sophia. And it will be Sophia he marries.”

“So tell him the truth.”

Suddenly the words from her dream made complete sense.

Was it so easy to betray me, wife?

She wasn’t
going
to betray him, she already had. With her deceit and her elaborate plots. Giles Corliss, Marquess of Trahern, could never marry the Brazen Angel. And if he did marry Sophia and her dual identity were ever discovered, the disgrace would be insurmountable.

He and his heirs would be shunned from polite society, all because of her.

“I can’t tell him. Nor can I marry him.”

Emma tapped out her pipe. “Then become his mistress.”

The idea held more appeal than Sophia cared to consider. But Giles needed a legal wife, a respectable woman to bear his children and ensure that his lineage continued untainted. “I’ll disappear. Maybe go to the Colonies.”

Laughter followed this response. “Sophia, is it a nice house?”

“What house?”

“The house Lord Trahern offered.”

“Yes. I visited Byrnewood often with my aunt while the old marquess was still alive.”

“Then take the house.” With that, the ever-practical Emma rolled over and went to sleep.

T
he chill of the October morning penetrated Giles’s rough wool uniform. Standing in the mews behind Webb’s old apartment building, he waited with Piper for Oliver to arrive with the horses they’d been able to hire and the cart they’d purloined. Behind him he heard her fidgeting with her sword, rattling it in its scabbard. Every few moments she would peer down the alley, searching the narrow byway for Oliver.

“He should be here any minute,” she said, pacing back and forth in a steady rhythm with the peal of the distant tocsins. They’d started before dawn, calling the people of Paris to hear the latest news. “I suppose with this morning’s tidings it will take Oliver longer to get here.”

Giles nodded, though he was hardly anxious to see the poor cart come rambling down the lane. Oliver’s arrival would be the first step in this suicidal plan. Though he should know better, he had to give his arguments one more try.

“This is insane. Abbaye? Why not just try to steal the Crown Jewels?”

“If you think of a better way let me know.” She sniffed and looked down the alley. “I agreed to let you go with us on the condition that you wouldn’t argue with me. That you follow orders. If this is a problem . . .”

Shaking his head, Giles shoved his hands in his pockets and said nothing. What could he say that he hadn’t already voiced? But he wasn’t about to let her go in alone, not after he’d realized he was responsible for ruining her position of trust with the National Committee. Even with his admission and apology, it had taken most of the night and into the morning to convince her that he could be of assistance.

The woman was too damned stubborn.

The children and Piper’s companion, introduced only as “Emma,” had left before the first hint of light. The woman’s face was shrouded in mystery, for she’d worn a hood and scarf wrapped tightly around her head and shoulders. With Lily and Julien also dressed in rough country clothes, Emma towed her unwilling charges on foot toward the city’s gates.

Once outside, Piper explained, they’d be met by an accomplice who would carry them in a freight wagon to Le Havre.

Down the alley the rattle of wheels and the whinny of a horse caught his attention.

“Now, explain to me once again how you propose to keep us from being killed,” he said as she clambered up into the front seat of the cart next to Oliver, who also wore the uniform of a National Guardsman.

Piper grinned at his question. “I don’t know. That depends on how well you follow orders,” she said, nodding at his newly acquired uniform. “So get in.” She jerked her thumb toward the back of the cart.

Relegated by his lower rank, Giles climbed into the back of the cart. He grimaced and scratched at the ill-fitting coat and trousers. Barely settled in his seat, he found himself jerked backward as the cart lurched forward, the wheels crunching over the cold cobbles.

Giles wondered what Lord Dryden would say about the report from this mission:

16 October. Helped the Brazen Angel free family members imprisoned in the Abbaye while Paris celebrated the death of its Queen.

It was bad enough he voluntarily agreed to walk into the most heavily guarded prison in all of Paris, never mind that they were doing it under the guise of
Fédérés
.

A swift death by the guillotine would be too much to hope for if they were caught.

Breaking into Abbaye, Giles assumed, and masquerading as
Fédérés
guaranteed nothing less than being drawn and quartered.

So despite all his protests, all his arguments, he and Oliver ended up spending the wee hours of the morning finding a pair of suitable guards from whom to steal uniforms. Their choices had been less than ideal, but the clothes had been obtained without too much of a fight.

Well, a bit of a fight, Giles thought as he rubbed his bruised knuckles.

“I still say you should dress in something else,” he said, nodding at her La Devinette costume. If anything, he considered it his duty to inject some sanity into her impossible plan.

“And how am I to get into the prison without it?” she shot back. “If they think I’m on official business we’ll be allowed to enter the yard unrestricted. Otherwise we won’t make it through the gates.”

Giles remained unconvinced. “Tell her,” he said to Oliver. “Tell her this is nonsense. No one will believe her.”

Oliver clicked the reins and laughed. “Better to tell today’s crowd they should spare the Queen’s life. Why do you think we called her ‘Piper’?” The man’s wide face split into a smile.

Giles smelled a good story and perhaps a clue to her true identity. Besides, the story might take his mind off the impossible task ahead of them. “Ah, so she was always good at leading the other children into trouble, eh?”

Piper and Oliver exchanged glances. Her face colored slightly at the question, while Oliver grinned even wider.

Intrigued, Giles persisted. “Come now. Out with it. I want the entire tale.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s just a childhood nickname. Nothing more.”

Oliver laughed. “If you won’t tell him, I will.”

She muttered a rather potent curse. “If you must, but be quick about it.” She glanced over her shoulder at Giles and then at Oliver. “No embellishments.”

Oliver leaned back in his seat, obviously enjoying his mistress’s discomfort. “When she was quite young she decided she wanted to be a shepherd when she grew up.”

“Not a shepherdess?” Giles asked.

Oliver responded with raised eyebrows and a slight shake of his head.

Giles studied Piper for a moment. “I see what you mean. A shepherd it is.”

“A noble profession,” Piper said, interrupting Giles’s muffled laughter.

“And so she set out to learn the necessary skills. She dressed like a shepherd, learned to tell all the sheep in the herd apart, how to lead them to the best pastures.”

“And she did this with great skill, I assume?” Giles asked.

“Of course,” she snapped back. “Suffice it to say I played at being a shepherd as a child. There, you’ve heard a charming and amusing story about my childhood. That should satisfy your curiosity, for this story is at an end.” Her tone brooked no resistance.

Oliver winked at Giles and continued quite merrily. “There was, however, the matter of the pipes. A good shepherd should be able to while away his afternoons playing his pipe. The sound soothes the little beasts and keeps them close.”

To this, Piper “harrumphed” and turned away.

“Our little shepherd never quite mastered the instrument. In fact, she was ordered out of the fields. Her playing agitated the poor sheep into a state of revolt. They found some of the distressed animals several fields away cowering in the shadows of the local parish. Some said the beasts were praying for the hellish racket to end.”

Giles laughed out loud this time, ignoring her outraged glare.

“Enough,” she said between gritted teeth.

“Oh, but it just begins,” Oliver said. “Our poor little shepherd enlisted the help of everyone in the village to teach her how to play the pipes.”

“Did you finally master the instrument?” Giles asked.

At this, Oliver laughed so hard that Piper had to pick up the story and the horses’ reins.

“No, I didn’t,” she said in disgust. “I’m tone deaf. I failed horribly.”

“Then why are you called ‘Piper’ if you can’t play the instrument?”

“That’s the irony of it,” Oliver said, finally having stopped laughing enough to finish his tale. “Everyone in the village trailed after her, trying to help. Soon, people from other villages heard of her predicament and came to offer their advice. Crowds would gather—”

“Crowds!” she muttered with disbelief. “Next he’ll be telling you the King sent royal musicians to instruct me.”

Oliver retrieved the reins from her hands. “As if that could have helped.”

Giles laughed at this, until Piper turned in her seat and frowned at him.

“I suppose you can play better?” she asked.

“As a matter of fact, I can,” he told her, crossing his arms across his chest. “Someday I’ll prove it,” he added in response to her look of disbelief. “This still hasn’t answered my question. Why are you called Piper?”

Oliver clucked at the horses. “Because she attracted so much attention and so many people came to hear her play so badly, we called her Piper, like the piper in the children’s story. Only instead of stealing all the children of the village, she drove away all the sheep and anyone who stopped to listen.”

Giles nodded his head in triumph. Coyly, he glanced over at her. “And what was your name before they called you Piper?”

“Nice try,” she muttered. “Believe me, it’s better you don’t know our identities. It would only endanger you further.”

“Perhaps. However, it would give me something to tell the Tribune when they put me on the rack to confess.”

“That isn’t funny.”

“I didn’t mean it to be.”

They fell into silence as Oliver turned off the quiet streets of the Place Vendôme and joined the processions heading toward the Rue St. Honoré.

The crowds thickened around them, slowing their progress. The air of Paris thrummed with the somber, steady sound of tocsins, calling the people to the streets.

“They truly are going to murder her, aren’t they?” Giles asked in disbelief as a pair of boys dodged in front of the cart. They held aloft a burning effigy of the queen, Marie Antoinette.

Piper nodded, her gaze fixed on the flames. “Balsac came by after the bells started. The jury handed down her sentence at about four.” She shook her head. “She isn’t the first.” Her wary gaze continued to watch the burning wax and crepe as it caught in the breeze and lofted far above their heads. “Nor will she be the last.”

She shuddered. “I’ve feared this. The streets are about to run with blood. If the Assembly thinks her death will appease the people’s thirst for revenge, they’re mistaken. This murder will unleash a fury of the worst demons. A plague against the innocent.”

Her words brought a chill to his spine. So softly spoken, with such utter conviction, he couldn’t help but think she was looking into the future. “But your family will be safe.”