Elizabeth Boyle (24 page)

Piper turned to him. The deep remorse in her gaze stunned him. “And I should rejoice in their lives while so many others will lose theirs?”

“You cannot save them all.”

“No, I suppose not.” Her gaze drifted far away, as if she were contemplating how she could free all the captives locked away in the Paris prisons. “How will I rest in England, knowing this continues?”

Giles couldn’t answer. He would tell her to stop because he wanted her to live; he wanted her to be a part of his life.

Yet what part of his life could he offer? The only part he would feel right in offering already belonged to another.

He tried to think of Lady Sophia’s face, some feature he could hold close to his heart, but nothing came to mind. The only thing he could “see” was the feel of Piper’s skin beneath his fingertips or the way she met his embrace with her own passionate claim.

The cart lurched along in the seething Paris traffic. It seemed as if every citizen in France filled the ancient city’s streets to witness the death of their hated Queen. The mood swung between a festival atmosphere, with parents and young children carrying wicker baskets of food, to the dark, scowling faces of the
sans-culottes
, triumphant in their vindictive revenge.

Now his misgivings about her costume resurfaced twofold, as the crowds around them swelled and the mood turned more and more turbulent.

The Paris crowds were a fickle lot, Giles knew from experience, and while he’d seen and heard of their affection for La Devinette as a heroine of the new Republic, such fond regard could change in a matter of moments.

There was no predicting the often ugly humor of a
sans-culotte
mob. If they were not satisfied with the death of Marie Antoinette, they would quickly look for fresh victims to fill their boundless appetites for murder.

If the order she’d overheard Robespierre issue last night had reached any of the forty-eight Paris
section
commanders, their allegiance to the lady they revered as an icon of Revolutionary spirit would be forgotten. They’d tear her to shreds, stick her severed head on a beribboned pike, and take it to the Salon de Cire for a new wax modeling. She’d be the latest attraction in Dr. Curtius’s hall of horrors before the end of the week.

If Piper felt the tension surging around them, he could not tell. Her eyes were set straight ahead, and she barely nodded at the cheers of recognition that were raised as she passed.

Occasionally, the crowds closed around them, dirty hands stretching out to touch the infamous Citizeness Devinette. He marveled at her control and ingenious manipulation of her adoring fans. Piper neither smiled nor acknowledged her fans. Instead, when the press of people became too thick she’d reach into her pockets and toss out a handful of coins, scattering the crowd as they fought for the tokens.

“
Vive La Devinette!
”

“
Vive La Republic!
”

If he could prove to Dryden and himself that she wasn’t involved with Webb’s death, as she claimed, they ought to consider recruiting her. With her natural talents and chameleon skills at disguise, she was the best agent he’d ever come up against.

“Is there some way you could lessen your appeal with the citizens of this city?”

“Why?” she asked. “I find them charming.”

“You say that now, but what if they find out . . .”

Piper frowned at him. “And you make your living doing this? I can’t see how you have survived for so long. My condolences to your wife. You’ll make her a widow before she has time to stitch a nursery sampler.”

Giles pushed back the red tricorn on his head. “I don’t make a habit of parading myself in front of a bloodthirsty lot when I have a death sentence hanging over my head. That’s akin to inviting your good friend Robespierre to an underground Royalist meeting.”

Her brows arched in challenge. “Where’s your sense of adventure, the challenge of the hunt you English love so much?”

“We love the challenge because we are the hunters, not the hunted.”

“All the same, if you find my plans so objectionable you can always hurry and catch up with Lily and Julien. Back to your sweet and deserving bride.”

Giles silently simmered. The woman truly needled his pride like no one else.

It was bad enough that her face screwed up into a sour countenance every time she spoke of Lady Sophia. But what really needled him were her sarcastic tones, which revealed that she found his choice of bride a great source of amusement—at his expense.

How could a woman like Piper, so full of vitality and sensuality, a woman to whom men flocked, belittle his betrothed as if she were a worthy opponent?

Perhaps Piper knew as well as he did that she would make a far better wife than Lady Sophia.

And Piper loved him. Giles knew it as much as he feared it. Her kiss last night had been evidence of that.

But was her love enough to toss aside Lady Sophia to marry a woman who would be regarded with scorn? His honor, his reputation, his place in society, all lost if he followed his heart. Not to mention what it would do to his heirs.

Marrying Piper was as crazy a notion as walking into the Abbaye. Impossible and against every grain of reason he possessed.

Yet here he was following her into the impossible.

Could he take that next step? Giles knew he couldn’t. Never.

Still, he didn’t like her superior tone, as if she knew his own struggles with his emotions.

“I think you should reconsider,” Piper said over her shoulder.

“Reconsider what?”

“Coming with us. The poor girl. First you throw her off and leave her on your wedding day, and now you spend what would have been your wedding holiday with me.” Piper shook her head woefully. “But she is rather a plain little creature, isn’t she? The type to be very understanding and accept you back into her good graces. After all, what other matrimonial chances would a girl like that have?”

At this insult Giles decided a lesson in humility was in order. “I’ll have you know my fiancée holds me quite near and dear to her heart. Besides, she is a lady and will accept whatever I tell as the truth.”

“Yes, I suppose she will.” She rubbed her chin, as if pondering the inconceivable notion of such an arrangement. That is, until a wicked gleam lit her one uncovered eye. “If you find her again. Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t she run away from your marriage bed?”

Giles sat bolt upright, clinging to the sides of the rocking cart. “How did you know that?”

She shrugged. “A lucky guess.”

Oliver shot her a censorious glower, as if she’d gone too far.

“Some night,” he grumbled. “You were as faithless as my bride.”

In a moment her face softened into the charm and romance of the Brazen Angel. Her voice teased and softened into sensual tones as she leaned over and whispered into his ear. “It could have been quite a different night if you hadn’t been so resigned in turning me over to the authorities.” She laughed merrily, the sound bubbling with promise and adventure. “But I won’t hold that against you, if you promise to hold me one more time.”

Giles witnessed a glimpse into the real woman as her emotions rippled past her disguise—the heated desire in her gaze and the lingering touch of her hand as it curved around his chin.

The tenuous ties from their night of lovemaking rekindled as though they’d never been extinguished. Giles’s chest tightened, and he drew his breath in deeply. He could well imagine how her touch felt elsewhere, how she could command him with her desires.

She, too, appeared affected by the moment. Her face glowed, almost blushed, as she probably remembered her daring, unabashed enjoyment in his arms. She looked away and then back into his eyes. The glance promised much, vows Giles would bind her to, no matter the price, no matter the risk.

Damn his honor, damn his father’s last wish.

He’d spend the rest of life with this woman and no other. A woman who risked her life for what she believed in, a woman who loved so deeply. And once they’d survived this day he’d tell her what was in his heart, carry her away from this wretched city, and give her and her family the safe home they deserved.

Sophia watched the strange change in his features, as if he had struggled with a great problem and finally found the solution, but what it was she didn’t have time to ask.

“Caution,” Oliver whispered. “We are being watched.”

Ahead at the next intersection she spied three toughs in the uniforms of their local
section
police, lounging. Their churlish expressions scoured the crowd, obviously searching for sport.

“Trouble.” Sophia took a deep breath. “I can feel it.”

Suddenly, one of the guards whooped out in anger. She jumped in her seat, thinking all had been lost and they knew of her warrant, but they halted not ten steps in front of her.

It was then that she saw their intended victim, a elderly man wearing the ribbons of an officer from the
Régiment du Roi
, standing at the very fringes of the crowd. Former officers of the King’s armies were so universally despised that most had either gone into hiding or emigrated, and he looked old enough to have been pensioned off long before the first troubles.

The scream in her throat stuck as the first of the louts descended on his victim like a rabid dog, the others following in a maddened pack.

Giles leapt from the cart and started to rush forward.

Before she knew what she was saying, she turned to Oliver. “Stop him,” she ordered. And to her horror she realized she hadn’t meant the murderer. She’d meant Giles.

Oliver caught the back of his collar and held him fast.

“Let me go,” Giles raged over his shoulder, swinging wildly at the larger man’s grasp.

Sophia shook her head, unable to let him do what was right, what was honorable. For if he stepped in, if he intervened, they would be the next victims.

Neither the pensioner’s age nor his feeble protests stopped the growing crowd. They raised their pikes and started the slaughter.

“Blood. Blood. Blood,” they chanted. And it ran from the man’s body, pooling in bright contrast to the dirty mud of the street.

Sophia struggled to look away from savagery. As in her dream she sat frozen in the moment, unable to move, unable to intervene. Bile rose in her throat, bitter, and she choked back the sobs that wanted to tear from her chest.

What had she just allowed?

Giles wrenched himself free of Oliver’s grasp and started forward again.

“Leave be, my friend,” Oliver warned. “Remember who you are.”

One glance at the old man told him it was too late to help the poor misguided soul. His time had ended.

“How can you be so callous?” Giles shot back, this time directing his comments to Piper. Oliver, he knew, would do nothing without his mistress’s permission. So it would have been her decision to intervene.

“Get in the cart,” she ordered, her gaze never leaving the grisly scene in front of her.

“Not before—”

“Get in or be left behind.”

Defiant, Giles considered a number of angry retorts as he stared down her challenge. Until he realized how wrong he was about her.

Her cheeks and lips were colorless and drawn, the blood drained away. Her hands trembled slightly, and as if sensing his gaze upon them she clasped one over the other to still their wavering.

She hadn’t been watching a stranger die, she’d been watching what could happen to the members of her family or the three of them if they were caught.

The ignominious and brutal death of being cut down in the street and left.

Unburied, unknown, unmourned.

The enormous responsibility she carried weighed down heavily on his shoulders.

And how had he helped? By jumping out of the cart and calling attention to them. Without a word he climbed back in and sank into his seat, humiliated by his behavior and his own stupidity. He could have killed them all.

He barely heard her quiet order to Oliver.

^“
I think we should take another route today.”

Without comment Oliver turned the cart from the wide paved boulevard and picked his way through the deserted side streets.

Sophia took one deep breath and then another.

What had she just done?

She’d sat immobile while an old man was slaughtered. The events happened so fast that it was as if she were back in the nightmare, her cries unable to reach the surface, her limbs unresponsive and weighted.

Nothing. She’d done nothing.

Had it been a crippling fear of discovery or cowardice that held her to her seat, unable to lift a finger to help the man?

Giles suffered no lack of morals. He’d leapt forward without a moment’s hesitation. One nod from her and Oliver collared him like a petty thief, holding the man back from doing what was right. Held on as if their lives depended on it.

And they had.

The notion repelled her as much as it frightened her.

She’d traded their lives for that of an unarmed old man. Reason told her the decision was sound, but her heart mourned the inequity of it.

Giles’s accusations echoed up from her dream. She’d betrayed the old man, as she would Giles if they failed to free her family and were captured in the process. Would she stand mutely by if he were caught? Would she have the courage to step forward and save his life?

“We’re here,” Oliver said quietly.

Sophia looked up at the gray, stained stones of the Abbaye.

To hazard this final deception and see her family freed, she needed her ruse and skills in persuasion firmly in place, her mind focused, her thoughts consistent.

Before her eyes the dark soot and years of grime coating the prison’s walls turned a brilliant shade of red, bright deadly blood, until the image blotted out everything else, her ears roaring with an ominous chant.

Blood. Blood. Blood.

Their blood. Her hands gripped the wooden plank beneath her.

When Giles leaned forward and nudged her, she nearly jumped out of her seat.

“I apologize,” he whispered. “We would have been lost if I’d tried to stop them.”