Love's First Light (18 page)
“My thanks.” Scarlett’s mother nodded to the man. “I have not been to Paris in many, many years. So much has changed.”
The man blinked several times at her, then crossed his arms over his chest and pressed his lips together as if fearing to say more.
They drove north through the square and Scarlett pointed to one of the buildings. “There, the Duplays’ house. I hope that is where Robespierre is still staying.”
The carriage pulled up, and Scarlett and her family disembarked. She had never known such nervousness as she did walking up the steps to the door. What if he turned them away? No. She was family, which made her mother and Stacia family by association. He would have to help them.
The door was opened by a pretty young woman with dark hair and intelligent eyes. “Yes?”
“I am Scarlett Robespierre, here to see Maximilian, my uncle.”
“Citizen Robespierre is not in at present.” Her eyes dropped to Scarlett’s protruding stomach. “He usually returns at the dinner hour.”
“Might we wait for him?”
The woman looked appalled at such an idea, so Scarlett quickly added. “We have traveled so far, all the way from Carcassonne. Please. He would appreciate your care of his relatives, I am certain.”
The woman looked torn, obviously not wanting to displease Robespierre. She muttered something under her breath and looked about to break out in a sweat. “I will send a note to his office. Until then you are welcome to take refreshment in the salon.”
Scarlett inclined her head in agreement. It was as good an offer as she was going to get.
The women settled in to wait, Stacia exclaiming, albeit quietly, about the grandeur of the city while they took tea and delicate, petite cakes and pastries. When the serving girl had departed, Stacia leaned over and whispered to Scarlett. “That was brilliant.”
Scarlett reached for another cake, not remembering when anything had ever tasted so good. “What?”
“The part about ‘taking care of his relatives.’ I think she would have kicked mother and me out immediately. I’m so glad that you came.”
Her mother agreed. “Yes, dear me, Scarlett. I am so glad you are here.”
Scarlett smiled, grateful to have overcome the first obstacle—but painfully aware the greatest one was yet to come.
Over two hours later, Robespierre finally made an appearance. He looked worse than she remembered—his pockmarked face the pallor of souring milk, his thin lips compressed. He wore the powdered wig of the old Regime, and his neck and shoulders twitched, causing his head to move about in an odd, grotesque way.
Scarlett swallowed the giant lump of nerves in her throat and rallied. She rose as he strode into the room, held out her hands toward him, and saw him recoil as if a serpent reached for him. He made an abrupt move with his head and then turned away from her toward a settee. “Citizen Scarlett,” he exclaimed as he sat across from them, “whatever are you doing here? I find it shocking that you are traveling in your . . .” He couldn’t seem to finish the statement. His gaze darted toward Scarlett’s rounded stomach and then quickly back up at her face. But not once did the man look into her eyes.
“Maximilian,” Scarlett reseated herself and clasped her hands together. “It is so good to see you again. Are you well?” She delivered the question with a slight tone of correction and offense.
He seemed momentarily at a loss for words. “Yes, merci. And this must be your mother and sister.”
Stacia bowed her head and gave him that graceful, sweet smile. “So good to finally meet the man who has taken such good care of us all these months. We are indebted to you, Deputy Robespierre.”
Their mother joined in a little too brightly. “Indebted, indeed, Deputy Robespierre.”
Apparently feminine praise did not sit well on the man’s shoulders. He fidgeted. “Well, yes. Just doing my duty. But, why have you come?”
Scarlett gained his attention with a delicate clearing of her throat. “Dear uncle, what choice did we have? With the flour depleted, we have no way to carry on. As my only surviving male relative, we were hoping we could further depend upon your good will.”
“You should have stayed, my dear. Paris is no place for you to be. The Révolution commands all of my energies. I have little time to see to your welfare.”
Scarlett chuckled. “We have little need of your time, uncle. Only a roof over our heads and the basic sustenance deserving of any relative. We have come to find Stacia a husband and as such, add to our resources.”
Robespierre’s gaze swung to the young woman. “Ah.” But he looked even more disturbed. “The moral character of the nation should be every citizen’s chief concern, not domestic happiness.”
“Of course,” Scarlett replied in a low voice. “I suppose living on your charity is nobler than a future husband for Stacia.”
Before Robespierre had time to respond to Scarlett’s impertinence, she plunged on, intent and determined. Her smile never wavering, looking him directly in the face for a silent second, she waited for his gaze to reach hers. When it finally did she asked softly, “How is Daniel’s aunt? Your dear sister, Charlotte?”
Robespierre rose, the nervous moving of his neck and shoulders worsening. He made for the door with a mumbled excuse. “Haven’t seen her. Pressing business. Must get to my writing.”
As he opened the door to leave them, Scarlett called out to him. “Uncle, shall we stay here?”
He paused as if remembering the reason they had come and his responsibility of finding them lodging for the night. He turned his head toward them, then back around, and then toward them again as if he didn’t know which way to go. “For now.”
As the door closed, Scarlett’s mother’s mouth fell open. “Good heavens!”
It was the only thing any of them could think to say.
THE CHATEAU WAS boarded up, pitch dark and as still as the death it had witnessed. Christophé closed the door through which he and Émilie had escaped that night so long ago and leaned against it for a moment, getting his bearings. He felt his way along the wall to the back stairs of the mansion and mounted them. A feeling of unreality assailed him as he groped through the dark toward the main quarters. The air in the place was stale and damp; he couldn’t quite breathe deeply enough, and panic grew in his stomach.
He found the library though, made his way to a long window, and drew back the curtain. Moonlight spilled into the room with such a cold light that it only added to his unease. He turned from it, needing a candle. The room had been gutted of anything of value. Even the rugs had been ripped from where they’d lain, soft and pliant under their feet for so many decades. Christophé limped toward the desk, the injury from his journey flaring up. He cursed the ill luck of buying a horse with the last of his stash of coins only to have it slip on the muddied road and fall, landing on his leg. But at least it had been he who was injured and not the horse. As unmanageable as the mare had been, she’d had the strength and stamina to get Christophé to Paris in a little over a week.
A search of the desk proved that whoever had looted their home had been thorough. There wasn’t even a dust mote to be found.
Giving up, Christophé made his way slowly to his bedchamber. As he did so, something nagged at him. A memory long buried . . . The room was completely dark and he was forced to go by touch alone. There. There it was. He pulled a deep box from a space behind the bed. He was surprised they had missed it.
Opening the box he felt through the contents like a blind man, looking straight ahead in the dark, noticing how his sense of touch was becoming more alive as he turned the objects over and over in his hands. Then, there it was. A long candle that he’d used to light gunpowder for some long-ago boyish prank he could barely remember. He smiled as his fingers wrapped around the flint and tinder.
He stuck the candle firmly between his clasped thighs but found he was out of practice. It took several tries to get the thing to light. Once it did, he felt a small measure of success. He studied the welcome flame, as bright and cheery as Scarlett’s lips—
No! He pushed her name from his mind. Enemies of circumstance—that’s all they were now.
Holding the lit candle high, Christophé wandered through every room in the chateau. He searched every nook and cranny, every secret place he could remember. He found little—an old blanket to cover himself, a broken chair that he might be able to fix, and half-stale loaf of bread. He sank down on the floor and ate it until it was gone. Finally, he lay on the floor, pulled the thin blanket to his chin, used his curled arm beneath his head for a pillow, and fell into a deep sleep.
For the first time in a long time, he slept the sleep of the dead in the room where he had grown up.
THE WOMEN TOOK a collective breath and stared at one another.
Stacia had her hand clamped over her mouth, her eyes wide. “Oh, Scarlett. You were so brave and . . . and well spoken. I was terrified. He was the most revolting little man I’ve ever seen.”
Scarlett shushed her with a strong look and a little shake of her head.
“Well,” their mother remarked, ever innocent of the dangers around her. “I can’t say that I am encouraged. It seems we’ve landed in a hornet’s nest.” She took a sip of her tea and stared across the room.
A girl came in to clear away the dishes, stopping further discussion. Scarlett watched the slight girl thinking she must be sixteen or seventeen years old. Her blonde hair came to her shoulders, but her face looked somehow familiar.
The girl kept her head down, seeming shy.
“What is your name, dear?” Scarlett asked as she passed her plate into the girl’s hands.
She glanced up into Scarlett’s eyes, her face frozen and terrified.
Scarlett gave her a kind smile. “Don’t be afraid. I am no one to fear.”
But the girl only stared, wide-eyed, for a moment and then bolted from the room.
Chapter Fifteen
Find Robespierre.
Find Robespierre.
Find the beginning of the horror and end it. It was the only way to go on.
Christophé woke to the chanting demand, got up and limped to the box where his childhood items lay scattered across the floor. He reached in, took up the knife that he’d hidden away because he knew its glistening sharpness would cause his brothers to take it, his mother to forbid it, and his father . . . well, he didn’t know what his father would have done should he discover it. He had never really known his father very well at all.
Christophé studied the knife in the gleam of dawn’s light. He turned it this way and that, the deadly sharpness stirring something tight and strong in his chest. He imagined thrusting it into Robespierre’s chest, hearing the ribs crack. He closed his eyes and imagined the man’s last breath . . . then fought the wave of nausea at the images in his mind.
The prayer lifted to his consciousness.
“Thy will be done.”
Then Scripture, the one that assured
“‘vengeance is mine,’ saith the Lord.”
“Thy will be done.”
Then Scripture, the one that assured
“‘vengeance is mine,’ saith the Lord.”
Christophé gritted his teeth against the truths he’d embraced for so long. Crushed the words pushing into his mind. Vengeance. It was what Robespierre deserved. He couldn’t wait until the judgment of God.
Taking up his cloak he swung it around his thin frame and quit the room with more energy than his body should have. He’d lost weight on the journey from Carcassonne, so much so that he had to tie a slender rope around his breeches to keep them up. Not eating to finish his experiments had given way to not eating for the simple reason of lack of funds. He had turned from Count’s son to roadside beggar in the space of a few years.
Once out onto the streets of Paris he kept his head down, his boots clipping across the stones, the leg feeling better after a good night’s rest. The breeze was gentle as he looked out at the quarter where he grew up. He heard the familiar sounds—birds chirping in the distance, the wheels of a carriage over the cobbled street, people passing by . . . but now he sensed an underlying fear. Heard the hushed tones of those afraid.
Anger rose up to his chest. What had the Révolution done to this city? They were all enemies now, or possible enemies. His eyes narrowed as he looked up, catching the eye of a lady in an expensive dress. She shied away, afraid.
He was glad.
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