Hearts Beguiled (7 page)

"I don't want to see you."

"You do."

"Please." She begged him with wide violet eyes. "Please ... let me go."

And he saw in her face that what he was feeling, she felt as well. And that it frightened her as much as it did him.

His arm fell to his side and he stepped back.

She pulled open the door and, without looking back, ran along the hall and turned down the stairs. He shut the door and crossed the room, went to stand by the window so that he could see her when she emerged into the gardens. Her head, flashing red-gold in the setting sun, reminded him of piles of autumn leaves blown into fiery swirls by the wind. He watched her weave in and out among the tables and chairs of the Cafe de Foy, scurry along the garden path around trees and benches, to disappear . . .

"But not forever," he said aloud to the empty room. "Whatever or whoever you are, Gabrielle, I am going to have you in my arms, in my bed. Gabrielle, ma mie. My lady-love."

❧

Gabrielle leaned against the gnarled trunk of a chestnut tree, gasping for breath as if she had just run the sixteen miles around the city walls instead of the few yards across the Palais Royal gardens. She pressed trembling fingers against lips that felt bruised and swollen. Never, not even in dreams, had she been kissed like that.

Glare from the setting sun dazzled her eyes and she squeezed them shut, then opened them immediately because the image of Maximilien de Saint-Just's face seemed to sear through her closed lids.

Her face burned at the memory of the way she had kissed him back. She, Gabrielle de Vauclair de Nevers, who prided herself on her hardheaded approach to life, had allowed herself to become infatuated with a complete stranger. When it came to Maximilien de Saint-Just, it was as if she had no control, not over her head, and certainly not over her heart. In her present weakened state, he could convince her of, get her to do, anything.

Just keep away from him, she told herself, pushing away from the tree trunk and resolutely squaring her shoulders. You'll be all right as long as you keep away from him.

But she knew that already it was too late. She was being drawn to Maximilien de Saint-Just by a force beyond her control to resist, the way a leaf, floating down river, can be sucked helplessly into swirling rapids.

Agnes pounced on her the minute Gabrielle set foot in the shop. "Did you find it?" she asked in a stage whisper, casting an anxious glance toward the kitchen.

Gabrielle bit her lip. "Has Simon—?"

"No, no, he didn't notice," Agnes said quickly, guessing at Gabrielle's worst fear. "He's in the kitchen, having his glass of wine. Dominique's with him. There will be fish for supper. Hurry and put the ring back before he notices."

"It wasn't—I couldn't find it," Gabrielle said evasively. Already, once out of Maximilien de Saint-Just's mesmerizing presence, she was beginning to doubt his innocence. After all, if he didn't take the ring, then who did? And if somehow, some way . . .

Louvois.

Gabrielle suppressed a shiver of fear. If Louvois saw the ring, even heard of it, he would be able to trace her and Dominique to Simon's shop. The risk of discovery was now too great; they were going to have to disappear again, yet she couldn't bear the thought. She had been so happy here in the pawnshop with Simon and Agnes. Happier than she had ever been in her life.

Not tonight, she thought. I can't do it tonight. Tomorrow. We'll leave tomorrow.

"What do you mean you couldn't find it?" Agnes was whispering frantically. "By the toes of Saint Hubert, what are you going to do now?" Gabrielle hurried into the kitchen before Agnes could question her further.

Simon, she saw, was dozing before the banked fire grate, an empty wineglass in his lax hand. His face, flushed from drink and the afternoon fishing in the hot sun, glowed ruddy in the fading daylight. An occasional soft snore puffed his lips.

Dominique stood on a stool before the table, wielding a bloody knife. A pile of fish lay in a gory mess in front of him. "Look, Maman," he exclaimed, waving the knife. "I gutted all the fishes all by myself."

Gabrielle snatched the deadly instrument from her son's hand before he could slice off his own nose. He was covered in slime and scales and fish blood, from his bare feet to his tangled flaxen curls.

"Jesu, child, you reek like a two-day-old mackerel."

Dominique wrinkled his nose. "I don't smell anything."

"Hunh. They can smell you clear out at Versailles. Fat old King Louis is probably shouting at his ministers at this very moment." She lowered her voice into a rough baritone. " 'Who is responsible for that horrible stink that is assaulting my royal nostrils? Find the culprit and have him tossed into the Bastille.' "

Dominique giggled, but his laughter died when he saw that his mother had opened the kitchen door and now struggled to drag a heavy wooden barrel inside.

Directly out the back door, which opened onto an alley, stood a rain barrel made of half a wine cask to collect water for bathing. It had been several weeks since Paris had had a good rain, but for the past three days Gabrielle had been buying an extra bucket or two from the water vendor, intending to treat herself to the luxury of a long, soaking bath. Now she would have to sponge off in a hand bowl and use the precious water on Dominique instead.

"But, Maman, I don't need a bath," Dominique protested.

"Off with your clothes, young man," Gabrielle ordered in a tone of voice Dominique knew demanded instant obedience. Sighing loudly, he began to untie the knot of the cord that held up his pantaloons.

Gabrielle waited by the barrel while Dominique slowly shed his clothes. Eventually he was naked, and the inevitable could be delayed no longer.

Gabrielle lifted him into the tub, and he howled as the water lapped over his bare flesh. "Jesu and all his saints! It's freezing!"

From his chair by the fire, Simon grunted and opened one eye, then drifted back to sleep.

"Don't curse, and it can't be freezing," Gabrielle said. "That barrel's been sitting in the sun all day." She handed the boy a sliver of lye soap and a brush. "Scrub, or I'll do it for you." Dominique quickly snatched the brush from his mother's hand before she could make good on her threat.

Gabrielle picked the grimy pantaloons off the floor with the tips of her fingers. She was surprised at how heavy they felt. She shook them, and the pockets rattled. "What have you got in here, rocks?"

"Don't throw them out, Maman. That's my collection."

She emptied the pockets onto the table. Rocks and stones rolled across the scarred, pitted wood. Just then the setting sun dipped below the sill of the window and something blue caught the dying rays, flashing in Gabrielle's eyes.

Laughter bubbled up in her throat at the same time that tears crowded her eyes. She snatched up Martin's sapphire ring, clutching it to her breast. He is innocent, she thought, her heart singing. Max is innocent, and the ring was never missing at all. We won't have to run away again and, Dieu, but I made such a fool of myself. But that doesn't matter because tomorrow I can explain everything. She could almost hear Max's teasing, mocking laughter as she told him what had happened. She laughed out loud herself, whirling around and hugging her arms.

She stopped when she saw that Dominique was watching her, openmouthed, from over the rim of the barrel. Agnes stood in the doorway staring at Gabrielle with startled eyes, and Simon was sitting up and gaping at her.

"Gabrielle, what ..."

Gabrielle slipped the ring over her finger and held her hand out to him. "Simon, I've decided that from now on I'm going to wear my ring. It seems silly, don't you think, to leave it lying in the case where anyone might see it and want to buy it? Mind you, I'll still pay you back those fifteen louis someday."

"My dear girl ..." Simon beamed at her, and his eyes were moist. "You've earned back the price of the ring a thousand times, just by being here."

"But, Gabrielle," Agnes said, "I thought you told me you couldn't find the—" At Gabrielie's fierce glare, she clapped her hand over her mouth to shut off the spill of words, swallowing hard. "Uh . . . oh," she said weakly.

"But, Maman," Dominique protested loudly, "you can't wear that. It's my most favorite rock!"

❧

Later that evening, a man by the name of Abel Hachette sat at his desk in his library, reading the day's stock quotations. Of the twenty-three rooms that comprised his mansion in the exclusive neighborhood of the Faubourg Saint-Honore, Abel Hachette loved his library the best. It was in this room— with its musical-instrument motif, its gold marquetry, its pilasters of white marble with bronze capitals—that he most felt the contrast between what he had been and what he Was now.

He had been born a peasant in a sod hut in Brittany, the grandson of a serf. Now he was a banker, an investor, a financier. He headed a cabal of Parisian businessmen who were wealthy enough to buy the kingdom of France and not even feel the pinch. And the source of the cabal's power and wealth, the secret to its success, was knowledge.

For there wasn't a conversation of any importance uttered in any capital in the European world that Abel Hachette didn't hear of verbatim. If the price of bread in Paris was going to fall next week, he would know about it in time to hoard his grain stores until prices went back up. If French tuckers were going to be all the rage at the London court next month, he would hear of it in time to buy stock in the lace factories of Lyons. His rivals often accused him of having a crystal ball, in fact, he had a whole net fastened with crystal balls, a net he cast over Europe in the form of his spies.

Knowledge, Abel Hachette told himself as he sat this evening behind his rosewood desk, alone in his magnificent library in the growing twilight, knowledge was the key to making money. And someday . . . someday it would be the foundation to far more. It would buy success in the secret cause toward which he and the cabal had been working for these last eight years and more.

The cause of revolution.

Someday, and soon, intelligent and wealthy men, men who earned their way, would not have to sit back and allow their country, their lives, to be run by a stupid old fool who was king only because he was born to it. Someday a man raised in a sod hut would be considered the equal of a man brought up in a palace. Someday a man wouldn't have to bow down before a title or a name. Someday—

"Onions! Fresh and strong! Onions!"

The harsh voice of the vegetable vendor carried over the rest of the street noise that drifted with the evening breeze through the open window. Sighing, Hachette laid down his newspaper and reached for the bell at his elbow, then thought better of it and rose, going to the window himself.

Below him, in the Rue Royal, a parade of elegant carriages clattered slowly through the pedestrian traffic going to and from the bustling Place Louis XV. If he leaned out the window and craned his head, he knew he would be able to see the new, huge bronze statue of the previous king on horseback that stood in the center of the place. But he would never do something so vulgar, so peasant-like, as to lean out his window to look at anything.

He could, however, without bending or leaning in the slightest, glance out the window at the traffic in the street directly below him. The lamplighters were just now making their rounds. Oil lamps had recently been installed on the corners of all the buildings in this fashionable district, replacing the old candle lanterns and giving the street a decidedly modern air that pleased him.

Hachette sucked in a deep breath, then brought a scented handkerchief to his nose to stifle a sneeze. The air was heavy this evening with the smell of soot and old dust. You could often smell the city of Paris long before you could see it, and that must certainly be true this evening. We need a good rain to wash things down, he thought. A good rain would—

He spotted a familiar figure turning the corner from the Rue Saint-Honore and emitted a small grunt of satisfaction. It was a young man with a lithe, muscular build and unpowdered dark hair, and he walked jauntily through the stalled traffic of cabriolets and coaches. Hachette even smiled slightly as the young man paused to tip his cocked hat flirtatiously at a richly dressed matron in a sedan chair.

"There you are at last," Abel Hachette said softly to himself, and his smile broadened. Mon Ange Noir. My Black Angel.

Hachette latched the window, shutting out the noise. As he turned, he caught sight of himself reflected along with the many candles of the room's crystal chandeliers in the mirrors that lined the opposite wall. He saw a tall, thin man nearing sixty, with a pale complexion, wearing a suit of silver satin embroidered with gold and a powdered wig in the sedate hedgehog style. For a moment this image startled him, as if a stranger had suddenly entered his beloved sanctuary.

Hachette shuddered and blinked once, trying to get a grip on himself. The boy—and he was a boy, damn him; he was still in his twenties, after all—always had this disconcerting affect on Hachette. His Black Angel. Hachette had constantly to remind himself that the young man, the boy, worked for him. Yet even as he thought this he knew it for a lie. Whatever his Black Angel did, it was for his own purposes, and he, Hachette, merely paid the bills.

Both sides of the double doors swung wide behind the hand of a lackey just as the gold-plated clock on the richly ornamented lapis lazuli mantel chimed nine o'clock.

"You're late," Hachette said, determined to establish his authority at the beginning for a change.

Maximilien de Saint-Just flashed his cocky smile. "My dear Abel, when are you going to learn to be grateful that I've come at all?"

Without waiting to be invited, Max slouched down in a gilded armchair. He shoved his hands into his pockets and stretched his long legs straight out before him, closing his eyes.

Hachette realized he had been left standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, and a warm blush spread over his cheeks. This attitude the boy projected, a sort of aloof disdain for the rest of the world, annoyed Hachette, for it never failed to remind him which of them had been born the son of a peasant, and which a son of the comte de Saint-Just.

He cleared his throat, pressing a handkerchief against his lips. "I thought I would have a cup of chocolate," he said, somehow sounding gauche to his own ears. "Would you care for some?"

Max opened one eye. "No, I would not care for some chocolate. I'll have a glass of that brandy you've got hidden deep in your cellar. The stuff you didn't pay tax on."

Hachette went to the desk and rang the bell. A servant had been hovering outside the door, expecting the summons, and he entered immediately. The order was given, the servant left, and silence descended as Hachette resumed his seat, safely barricaded behind his rosewood desk.

"Your message said you had something important for me," Hachette said when he realized that since the boy seemed to be falling asleep in,the chair, he was going to have to initiate the conversation. "Whatever it is, it must have kept you up all of last night."

Max smiled, although his eyes remained shut. "Getting it certainly did."

Hachette felt a quiver of excitement. Ah, my Black Angel, he thought, what do you have for me this time?

In the early days, when the cabal had first begun to use agents to gather the information so necessary to making their investments and financing their schemes, they had referred to their spies by the code word of "angels" in any correspondence that might have inadvertently fallen into the wrong hands. They did not resort to such childish games any longer, but privately Hachette still thought of the dark and dangerous Maximilien de Saint-Just as his Black Angel.

The servant entered bearing brandy in a Baccarat decanter with a matching snifter, and chocolate in a Sevres porcelain cup.

Max roused himself enough to take the glass of brandy. He swirled the liquid around the sides of the crystal, then held it up to his aristocratic nose before disposing of the contents in two swallows. When the door had closed behind the servant, he went to the marble-topped sideboard and refilled his glass from the decanter.

Turning, he tossed a packet of papers tied together with a riband between Hachette's open hands, which rested placidly on the glowing polished wood of his desk.

"What is it?" Hachette asked, unable to keep the excitement from his voice as he reached for the papers.

"Read and see. Although some of it may be illegible. There was a lot to copy and I didn't have much time,"

While Hatchette read over the documents, squinting through a quizzing glass, Max sat down again. He leaned his head over the back of the chair, seemingly engrossed in the cupids and cherubs that cavorted on the frescoed ceiling.

"But this is incredible, Max!" Hachette exclaimed. With the information in these papers he would be able to underbid all other contenders for the lucrative concession of supplying fodder and uniforms for his majesty's army. "This is incredible. Where on earth did you ever get your hands on it?"

Max's lips curled and his head lowered until he had Abel Hachette fixed with his steely gray gaze. "The papers—or at least the originals—are in the possession of a Monsieur Voltiere, who is first secretary to the minister of war. Monsieur Voltiere, you'll be relieved to know, is a very careful man.

They were sealed and put in a locked box within a secret drawer of a locked chest within his locked library."

"But how . . . ?"

Max's eyes were filled with amused cynicism. "How do you think, Abel? Monsieur Voltiere was not at home last night, but the charming, and very lonely, Madame Voltiere was." He shrugged. "Seals can be loosened, locks can be picked."

And wives can be seduced, Hachette thought. He himself didn't have a wife, but he nevertheless made a mental note never again to leave even the most innocuous documents locked in his desk drawer.

"Last night's work could turn out to be quite profitable, Max," he said, tapping the sheaf of papers against his chin. "You are to be complimented—"

Max's mocking laughter shattered the quiet of the room. "I don't need your compliments, Abel. Just don't fail to give me my twenty percent when the deal goes through."

"But of course, my dear boy. That goes without saying."

Hachette looked fondly at the young man. In return, Max watched the older man from beneath sleepy lids.

"Now, who's the girl, you pimping bastard?" Max asked abruptly in rough street French.

Hachette started. "What girl? I don't understand."

"Don't-try to bugger me, Hachette. I'm talking about that delectable little morsel you sent to bedevil me these last two days."

"I don't use women, Max, you know that. They're unreliable." He tried to look wounded. "And I never spy on my own men."

"The hell you don't, when it suits your purposes. And you use women, too. When it suits your purposes. Who is she?"

Hachette regarded him squarely. His pale face, only lightly scored by his sixty years, showed curiosity, perhaps a bit of annoyance, nothing more. "I swear to you, I know nothing about a girl. What's more, my boy, I don't appreciate being called a pimp."

For a moment Hachette saw genuine anguish darken the young man's eyes. "But isn't that precisely what you arc, Hachette? Doesn't a pimp profit from the work of his whore? What do you think I did for you last night to get those papers?"

"That's not the same thing."

"Isn't it?" Max stared at him for a long time, then shrugged wearily. "It doesn't matter. The girl calls herself Gabrielle Prion. I caught her searching my rooms this afternoon."

Hachette paled. He thought of the many enemies he had made within the various government ministries over the years. King Louis XVI's spy apparatus was not nearly of the caliber of his grandfather's, but still . . . And there was the secret side to the cabal, the political side. If any of that ever came out they'd all wind up broken on the wheel at the Place de la Greve.

He fingered the sheaf of papers covered with Max's bold scrawl. "My God, did she see these?"

Max said nothing, only gave him a look of pure contempt.

"But this is worrisome, Max. Perhaps she works for the king."

"I doubt it. Whoever she is, she's a bloody amateur."

Hachette thought a moment, then shrugged. "The name— Gabrielle Prion. It means nothing to me. Describe her."

"Young, about twenty. Pale-skinned with striking red-gold hair. Very dark blue eyes. Purple actually."

"Is she beautiful?"

"Breathtakingly so."

Hachette's eyes flickered away, and there was a faint hollow note to his laughter. "My dear boy, I can scarcely credit it. Has your breath been taken?"

"You do know her," Max said.

"There is something ..."

Hachette did a mental thumbing through his memory. Once he received a piece of information, no matter how seemingly insignificant, he stored it away in the repository of his mind in case it turned out to be useful to him later. Hachette's memory was legendary, and more than one enemy and rival had come to suffer by it.

"I might have heard of her," Hachette finally said. "I seem to recall the minister of the Paris police was asking about a girl of that description, oh, three, maybe four, years ago.

"Why?"

Again Hachette was lost in thought for a moment. "I don't think he ever said specifically. But I had the impression the inquiry wasn't being made on the minister's behalf, but on someone else's. Somebody important. You haven't really fallen in love with her, have you, Max?"