Hearts Beguiled (9 page)

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They did not, after all, tell each other their life stories. Their secrets were too dark and deep, what they felt for each other too new and fragile, to risk such intimacy.

The cafe, a neighborhood gathering place in a narrow alley off the Rue de Rivoli, was crowded and noisy even at this hour of the night. A group of richly dressed university students was holding a political debate, and the words "liberty" and "revolution" echoed loudly in the high-ceilinged room.

They had to shove their way through the crowd to the back where a small marble-topped table stood on iron legs. There was only one empty chair, but Max stole another from a man who had leaped onto a nearby table to add his opinion to the din. Evidently it wasn't a popular opinion, for someone heaved a bowl at his head. The man ducked and the crockery shattered against the wall behind him. Unfortunately the bowl had been full of a lumpy potage, and the table orator howled as he was splattered with hot clumps of the brown, greasy gravy.

Max and Gabrielle looked at each other and laughed.

It was warm in the cafe, and Gabrielle started to take off her manteau, remembering just in time that she was wearing nothing but her nightdress underneath. She felt Max's eyes on her and looked up, blushing when she realized that he, too, was aware of her disgraceful state of deshabille.

A waiter shuffled up and glared insolently at Max. "Oui, monsieur. "

"Brandy." Max raised a brow at Gabrielle.

"The` a` l'anglaise," she said, which caused the waiter to curl his lip with disdain before he shuffled away again.

The students had taken their argument outside, and the noise around them lessened. Gabrielle looked at the man across from her. The first time she had seen Maximilien de Saint-Just she had thought there was a harshness, a cruelty, about him. The harshness was still there, in the lines at the corners of his mouth, although it was relaxed and smiling now. And although there was laughter in the sooty gray eyes that regarded her so carefully, they still betrayed the bitter disillusionment he tried to disguise with his mocking ways.

She wondered who or what had hurt him so badly.

"How did you learn so much about the stars?" she asked him.

"Necessity. I once sailed a ship between France and America. The Atlantic Ocean is a very big place, and the captain had better be able to read the stars if he's going to make his way safely across it."

"America!" Gabrielle exclaimed softly. "How I've always wanted to see America. I've never even been outside of Paris. Except once, when I was a girl and Maman took me on the old chamber pot to Versailles to see the king and queen eat supper."

She remembered that day vividly, although she had been only five or six. She and Maman had crowded into one of the special tourist coaches that were called chamber pots, no doubt because of the stink of so many unwashed bodies packed together. Once at Versailles, they had all marched in a long line past the royal table, in one door and out another. The king, she remembered, who was fat even then, had shoveled the food into his mouth so fast he barely chewed before swallowing. But the queen, looking miserably unhappy to be on display like an animal in a menagerie, hadn't eaten at all. It was the only time her maman had taken Gabrielle to Versailles, although Marie-Rose de Servien de Vauclair, if she'd so desired, could have been a lady-in-waiting to the queen.

Gabrielle realized Max must think of her as the wife of a mere wigmaker's apprentice and unused to such grandeur. "That must have been a rather edifying experience," he said, mockery in his voice.

The waiter appeared at Max's elbow. "The a I'anglaise," he said with a sneer, and plopped the cup of tea and milk down in front of Gabrielle, so hard that some of the liquid slopped into the saucer. The glass of brandy he set down with care, almost with reverence, clearly showing his patriotic inclinations and his disgust of all things English.

Max paid the waiter and waved him away. He took a sip of the brandy and grimaced. "God. This is vile stuff. It's probably made right here in the cellar."

Gabrielle laughed softly, and he smiled back at her. Her eyes still on his face, she reached for the teaspoon that lay catty-cornered across the saucer.

Max's smile vanished abruptly. He grabbed her wrist, slamming her hand down flat on the table. The sapphire ring winked in the light cast by the girandoles on the wall.

His heavy lids lowered until they all but obscured his hard gray eyes. "Is this the ring I'm supposed to have stolen? The precious ring your husband gave to you?"

Gabrielle swallowed hard, but she didn't look away. "It was all a silly mistake. My son took it. He thought it was a rock."

As she told him the story she tried to make a joke of it, though she could hear the nervous quiver in her voice. Slowly, Max relaxed, and the dangerous look left his face. By the end of it, he even managed to laugh with her, although she knew by the wary look in his eyes that he still did not quite believe her.

The fingers that had clasped her wrist so cruelly now gently rubbed circles on her bruised skin, and his touch warmed the blood in her veins until she burned inside.

I want him, she thought. God, how I want him. And if wanting is love, then I am, God help me, in love.

He released her wrist, and a long silence stretched between them.

"Tell me about America," she said.

"It's big and wild and raw. Everything is new there. New and clean."

"The cradle of liberty ..."

He smiled cynically. "So they claim."

"Is that why you sailed to America, to fight in their revolution?"

"Not exactly. I ran muskets past the English warships, but I did it for money, not liberty." He gave her his tough, damn-the-world smile, and she thought it was probably that expression that made her fall in love with him. "I will do anything for money," he said.

Then his grin faded. He reached across the table to touch her hand, which had been nervously toying with her teaspoon. "You know what's going to happen, don't you, Gabrielle?"

She shook her head, unable to look at him, but the word that came out of her mouth was "Yes."

"I want you, ma mie, and I mean to have you. But don't go weaving myths around me because I'm a bastard and I've no desire to be reformed. I'll lie to you and I'll probably use you, and I'll most definitely end up hurting you, so if you have any sense at all you'll—"

"I don't care what you are!" she cried, unconcerned that he knew exactly what she had come to feel for him. "Besides, I don't believe you're . . . you're really like that."

He shook his head, placing his fingers against her lips. "You can't know what I've done."

She took his wrist, turning his hand to touch her lips to his palm. It seemed a strangely intimate gesture, more so than the kisses they had shared. "I know what you've done," she said to him, and she believed it, for in that moment she knew him, understood him, better than she knew and understood herself. "There are things one must do to survive. And afterward . . . afterward they don't matter. I know," she said again, "for I've probably done most of them myself."

His lips twisted into a skeptical smile. "That would be impossible."

She let go of his hand and picked up her teacup. "I was once a letter writer in the Cemetery des Innocents. I sat on a tombstone with paper and pen and earned ten sous writing love notes for those poor rustics who come to Paris to find a fortune and lose their hearts instead. I'll wager you've never done that."

He laughed. "No, I can't say I have."

He chuckled again and she laughed with him, dissolving the last vestiges of the strange intimacy that had developed so suddenly and mysteriously between them. Gabrielle knew the chance had been there, in that moment, to tell him the truth about herself and her past. But it was too soon.

G
abrielle grimaced at her reflection in the mildew-spotted mirror that hung above her rickety dressing table. All this primping and fussing over her appearance was making her feel ridiculous.

"Aren't you done yet?" she complained, squirming on the hard wooden stool.

Agnes unwrapped a fiery gold curl from around the hot iron and tucked it into the arrangement of crimped coils and loops atop Gabrielle's head, securing it in place with a pair of wire pins. "It's a pity we can't afford the pomatum and flour to powder your coiffure," she said, tucking a final stray wisp of hair into place. "Otherwise you would be absolutely le dernier cri."

Gabrielle gingerly patted Agnes's elaborate masterpiece. "I feel like a ship under full sail."

Then she laughed suddenly, and Agnes smiled at Gabrielle's infectious happiness. "Whatever you do, don't sneeze or you will be completely undone."

Gabrielle laughed again, then stood up carefully, holding her head stiff. With Agnes's help, she pulled on her dress, arranging its full skirt over the small pads fastened to her hips that were now often taking the place of the more old-fashioned panniers. The dress was a cheap version of the thin, white muslin gown known as a gaulle, which the queen had introduced into fashion last summer, and the decolletage of its tight square bodice was cut so low she feared to bend over.

Agnes clucked in dismay as Gabrielle picked her new fichu from the end of the bed. "You will never capture him by hiding your charms, Gabrielle. Like the peacock, you should be flaunting your plumage."

Gabrielle arranged the folds of the fichu so that her plumage was modestly covered. "It just so happens it's the male peacock that struts about with his tail feathers on display. And I have no desire to 'capture' Monsieur de Saint-Just. Dominique and I are merely accompanying him on an outing to the Jardin des Plantes."

Agnes shrugged at this obvious prevarication. "He's practically yours anyway, Gabrielle. It's obvious the poor soul is madly in love with you."

Gabrielle almost snorted. "Don't be ridiculous."

"Jesu, but he's a gorgeous man. He would make a fine lover, and more's the pity, because"—Agnes lowered her voice conspiratorially—"I fear his intentions are strictly honorable."

Gabrielle did snort then. "Strictly lustful, you mean."

"I think you do him an injustice, Gabrielle. Otherwise why would he have bothered to spend the last hour charming your son and Monsieur Simon?"

"He what?"

Gabrielle whipped around so fast that Agnes stumbled backward in alarm. "Please, Gabrielle, your hair! Be careful or you'll—"

"Agnes, you wretch! I can't believe he's been here a whole hour and this is the first I hear of it!"

"By the ears of Saint Steven, I'm telling you now, aren't I? Jesu, I've never seen you so excitable. He came early and you weren't ready. He brought Dominique a toy, and he and the boy and Monsieur Simon have all gone out into the gardens to play with it."

Gabrielle slipped hurriedly into her best leather slippers, searching the disordered room for her hat. "He brought

Dominique a toy? What sort of toy? Agnes, where in heaven's name is my hat?"

"Right here under your nose." Agnes anchored the hat-it was boat-shaped, made of straw, and adorned with pink feathers—atop Gabrielle's head. "It was an interesting object, this toy your handsome scientist brought Dominique. It looked like a miniature montgolfier, but he called it something strange ... an aero— Gabrielle! Where are you— I haven't finished yet!"

Gabrielle tore down the stairs so fast she almost tripped over her skirts. She held her breath, expecting at any moment to hear an explosion coming from the gardens. The man was absolutely, impossibly, completely mad.

She spotted the balloon first. A bright yellow ball, it floated among the chestnut leaves like a bouncing sun. Then she saw the flash of her son's hair, almost as golden. He was tethered to the balloon by a piece of twine wrapped around his wrist. Simon and Maximilien de Saint-Just stood beside the boy, all three standing beneath the bright red and white striped awning Of a lemonade and licorice stand, their heads tilted back, watching the balloon ride the air currents.

Gabrielle snatched Dominique off his feet, jerking the string from his wrist. The balloon, free of its moorings, sailed up and over the rooftops of the Palais Royal.

Dominique screamed. "Maman! You've lost my 'stat! Bring it back! I want it back!"

"Gabrielle!" Simon exclaimed in surprise.

She turned on Max in fury. "How dare you endanger my son!"

"It was only a toy, Gabrielle." He had to shout to be heard over-Dominique's wails.

"Do you deny that that thing was filled with inflammable air?"

"It was inflated with hydrogen, yes, but—"

She turned away from him, stalking back toward the pawnshop with Dominique twisting and screaming in her arms.

Max had to trot to catch up with her, taking her elbow and halting her by force. "Gabrielle, dammit, will you listen? It was perfectly safe. It wouldn't have exploded—"

"It exploded before!"

"Only because I meant it to. I was testing the strength of a new gummed-silk envelope I've invented by applying heat. A lot of heat."

Gabrielle's anger left her so suddenly that she felt like one of his deflated aerostats. Hot embarrassment flooded over her, burning her cheeks. Dieu, she had done it again, made an utter and complete fool of herself in front of this man. She hoped a giant crack would open right here in the gardens of the Palais Royal and swallow her up.

Dominique's cries had quieted to choking, muffled sobs. "I want it back," he kept pleading over and over. "I want it back, Maman. Bring it back."

Gabrielle was now near tears herself. "Oh, Dominique . . . I'm so sorry."

Max cupped the golden head in his hand, tilting the boy's face up. "I can make you another," he said softly. "A bigger and better one."

Dominique sniffled, wiping his nose with the back of his wrist. "I want a red one."

"Then a red one you shall have." Max captured Gabrielle's eyes and smiled. An answering, tentative smile quivered around her mouth.

Dominique pushed against her chest, demanding to be let down. She set him on his feet and he immediately ran back to Simon, who hovered at a discreet distance, shouting to him about the new red 'stat he was going to have.

Gabrielle watched the boy for a moment before her gaze returned to Max. "Thank you," she said.

"My pleasure."

His sooty eyes moved over her face, as intimately as a caress, and the constant noise in the crowded gardens seemed suddenly to still. A hot summer breeze stroked her cheek, bringing with it a smell of cut lemons and dust and crushed chestnuts.

"Good morning, Gabrielle," he said, and her throat tightened. How she loved to hear him say her name.

Embarrassed, she brushed a loose curl from her flushed forehead, then plucked nervously at her hat, which had tilted askew during her mad rush down the stairs.

He stilled her hand. "Don't ... I like you looking a bit disheveled."

She laughed nervously. "You've never seen me looking any other way."

A slow, lazy smile stretched across his wide mouth, transforming his face, brightening his eyes until they glinted like quicksilver. She lost herself in those eyes, that smile, lost herself in him, until the world faded away and there was just the two of them, consumed in each other.

So absorbed were they that Simon had to speak twice to make himself heard.

"Monsieur de Saint-Just? The hackney you ordered, it's here,"