Time for Eternity (8 page)

But this was cozy like the library. The ceiling was of carved wood. A round table gleamed with polish in the candlelight. It sat six rather than the twenty or thirty she’d imagined. A sideboard was heaped with covered silver trays. Crystal sparkled. The china set for two was Sèvres, figured in blue and gilt to match the blue and red of the carpet and the midnight blue of the draperies, closed now against the night. The whole was warm and cheery.

And leaning against the mantel, his booted foot on the andirons of the flickering grate, stood the duc, wine glass in hand. He wasn’t a lion. More like a black panther, sleek and powerful. Dangerous. The room fairly … quivered with his presence.

Be careful. Don’t let his handsome person befuddle you.
She would think of tonight as research. She’d discover why he saved her and use that information to get him to save Madame.

All the time she’d been dressing, she’d had a most uneasy feeling. That the duc was a threat was obvious. It wasn’t that. All of this seemed … familiar somehow. That strange sensation of déjà vu one got sometimes usually lasted only for an instant. But she just couldn’t shake the feeling that she knew this man and she’d done all this before.

And that it hadn’t turned out well.

He glanced up at her entrance. He blinked once, twice. “Well, that is an improvement.”

She blushed. How
could
she? She had to appear strong, not naïve and vulnerable. “Anything would have been an improvement.”

Another footman joined Jean to take the covers from the dishes on the sideboard.

“I hope you don’t mind an informal dinner. I like to dispense with servants whenever possible. ” He was looking at her quite strangely, no doubt comparing her unfavorably with the last wearer of this marvelous dress.

She set her teeth.
Be polite. Get him talking.
“I trespass on your hospitality. However you choose to be served can only please.”

He looked faintly … pained. Well, perhaps that had struck a false note. “Oh, very well. I actually like informality.” She breathed and smiled. “It was one of the nicest things about living with Madame LaFleur. She treated me quite like a friend. Cook and her girl and Robert were our only servants. So we often dined informally. I find it comfortable.”
Liar.
How could one be comfortable with an attractive devil like Avignon ready to steal your soul?

Now who was being dramatic? Stealing souls. These thoughts seemed entirely foreign.

He kept his own counsel, but the pained look had been replaced by one of … speculation. The footmen took away the covers after pouring white wine in two glasses and red in two others, and leaving the decanters. The duc picked up a plate and began putting tidbits on it. She picked up another.

He frowned at her, took her plate, and set it back down. “Allow me,” he said firmly.

He was going to serve her? How odd for a wicked duc. He didn’t ask what she’d like to eat, but chose for her.
That
seemed entirely in character. The sideboard held platters of oysters on the half shell with mignonette vinegar, chicken Dijon, beefsteak, a ragout of sweetbreads, spinach in a cream sauce,
haricots verts,
a platter of buttered lobster tails among a dozen others—the largesse was embarrassing. She hadn’t seen so much food in one place for several years. And there was a whole shallow dish full of salt.

“You … you set a fine table,” she murmured, at a loss for words. Salt was precious these days; taxed by the government until it was too dear for almost all households.

Her mouth began to water in earnest. This food would have been cooked with salt.

“Ahhhh, I see you are admiring my little import. One likes to command the elegancies.”

“Salt. Brandy. Well water. Wherever do you get such luxuries?”

“Well, the water is easy. I own the system of wells, at least until they are nationalized.”

Really? That was surprising. Had he bought them, had them dug? “God forbid the wealthy should drink water from the Seine like everyone else.”

He glanced at her, his eyes unreadable. “Those who pay for it finance wells for those who cannot. The latest is going in upriver, near the slaughterhouses.”

She bit her lip. “I would not have thought you so generous.”

“Generous? No. It keeps my wells from being vandalized.”

She should have known. When her plate was full, he set it on the table and drew out a chair for her. She seated herself. “Thank you.”

His bare hand brushed her shoulder as she sat back and she felt it through to her bones, as though he had been rubbing his shoes on a carpet. Goose pimples rose on her neck and coursed down one side of her body. She had never felt anything quite like it.

He walked back to the sideboard, rubbing the hand that had touched her shoulder surreptitiously on his coat. Had he felt the touch as she had? The coat was of a satin, blue so dark it was almost black. He was strongly built. It was hard not to think about his body moving under his clothing as he filled his plate. His muscles were not ropy, stringy things. They bulged. She would be able to see the veins that fed his biceps … The image made her … tingle.

Where had she gotten thoughts like that? The only times she had ever even seen men without their shirts was from a distance during haying time on her aunt’s estates. Yet she could imagine just how Avignon’s muscles would look if she could see him naked

…

Stop it,
she told herself. It was as if she already knew what he looked like naked.

He sat down next to her with his own plate. That was too close. His suppressed energy hummed and echoed in her veins. He had brought the shallow bowl of salt with its tiny silver spoon. “Feel free,” he murmured, “but Pierre would be desolate if you didn’t taste first.”

He didn’t seem to be the type to say grace. The devil wouldn’t thank God, would he? So she murmured her own thanks under her breath and turned her attention to her plate. How had she not realized she was famished? Everything tasted wonderful. There was no need to add salt. After some time she slowed enough to realize her companion was only toying with his food. She must look like some starving urchin to him.

She cleared her throat. “My compliments to your chef.”

“I should have Pierre in to see your enjoyment.”

She shrugged. “With the Revolution, things have not been so easy. Madame LaFleur has had to watch her sous carefully since her husband died.”

“Things are never easy when the common man runs wild. All descend to the lowest common denominator.”

“I had such hope at first,” she murmured. “Things were so bad, the taxes so hard, the priests so venal … I thought that if one but followed the principles of Rousseau and Voltaire …”

He grimaced and shook his head. “It never works.”

“You are a royalist, of course.” He would be, with huge estates no doubt confiscated in the name of the people without a king to protect them.

“The royalists are as stupid and greedy as our fine new ‘citizens.’ Fear and greed are the only truths.” He sipped his wine, looking to see if he had shocked her.

“A man like you would believe so.” Strange, but some part of her believed that too.

“Ahhhh, and what does your … experience tell you about men like me?”

She felt herself coloring. He was baiting her because she was young and inexperienced. In truth she had never known anyone faintly like him. She was not going to give him the satisfaction of admitting that. “Your reputation is generally known.”

“But what a unique opportunity,” he observed, cutting a beefsteak that bled onto his plate it was so rare. “Do tell me what the general populace thinks of me.”

“It … it is not my place to say.” Her oysters consumed her attention.

“Surely you can satisfy my curiosity in return for my hospitality this evening?”

Did he have to keep reminding her of her obligation? Well, there were some things she could deduce. And Madame LaFleur had gossiped. “You cannot blame the messenger then.”

“Fair enough.”

“Well … well, you are thought to be ruthless.”

“True.” That did not seem to faze him.

“And a libertine of course.” He said nothing. “Because of the women,” she felt obliged to explain. She had seen those for herself in the grand ballroom.

“Of course. Because of the women.”

“And the gambling.”

“That too.”

“The fact that you never return from your debaucheries until dawn.”

“Dear me, do people notice that? I’m flattered.”

Well, really! If he admitted everything so blithely, she ’d have to reach deeper to make him feel his faults. She bought time by taking a bite of the creamed spinach.

“You are called the ‘wicked duc.’ ” That was weak. It was only she who called him that.

“So I’ve heard.” He couldn’t have heard that. He was just toying with her. The expression in his eyes was almost a kind of laughter.

“Mammas keep their daughters from you.” Madame had certainly warned Françoise.

“A relief.”

“Even men are, I think, a little afraid of you.” Robespierre seemed to be, after all.

“Convenient, really.”

She was getting angry. “So I ask myself, why do people fear you so?” She tapped her empty fork against her lips. “It could be something you have done in the past so horrible that people will not speak of it. ” He watched her, wary now. “Or … it could be because you seem to have secrets. Secrets both attract people and make them afraid.”

He blinked, twice. She considered that an achievement. Then he took a sip of wine. “I think boring people so want there to be secrets they will make them up if they don’t exist.”

That wasn’t
exactly
a denial. “Are you saying you don’t have secrets?”

“We all have secrets, child.” He examined her from under those lush lashes. “Everyone lies. Everyone tries to get what they want, without revealing how much they want it.”

Françoise sucked in a breath. Did he know what she wanted of him? Would such a cynic extend himself to help Madame? She must not go too fast. A man like Avignon would resent any attempt to push him. She changed the subject. “I wonder you stay in France. Why not abandon the country to her foolishness? Especially when you are in danger by your very birth? ” He had that in common with Madame. Could she play upon his sympathies for one like himself?

He set down his glass. “Don’t make me a romantic figure. I am in no danger.”

He certainly acted as though the committee and the mob posed no threat. “How is that when you make not the slightest accommodation to the rules of the committee?”

He raised his brows in surprise, whether because she dared to ask the question or because she did not know the answer, she couldn’t tell. “Why should I make accommodation?”

“How can you not, and stay out of a tumbrel?”

“Ahhh.” He studied her. “Perhaps
that
is my secret.”

“I’ll wager it’s not your only one,” she grumbled, stabbing a piece of lobster.

“It seems to
me
you should be grateful that my standing … let us say, ‘encouraged’ Robespierre to lose interest in you today.”

“Why? Why did he let me go?”

“Oh, perhaps because he and I are old friends.”

Not likely. The little lawyer, precise to a fault, had never let anyone close in his life, even Marta Croûte, who was rumored to be his mistress. He lived for the Revolution and guarded its integrity to the point of insanity. He had started sending the earliest proponents of revolution to the guillotine themselves a few months ago, just because they were no longer zealous enough for him.

Even Danton had lost his head. Françoise didn’t believe Robespierre let her go out of any feeling for Monsieur le Duc. But in some ways it didn’t matter why. He had. That meant the duc could help Madame. She took a breath, about to broach the subject, but thought better of it. Best she approach obliquely.

“Why did you bother yourself about me, today?” That would tell her much about him.

“I thought it might be diverting to flaunt you in Robespierre’s teeth when he knows you are not my ward.” He smiled. The effect was not what one would call warm. “I must invite him and that woman who is such a rabble-rouser … What is her name?”

“Marta Croûte.” He had saved her only to spite Robespierre and Madame Croûte?

“Yes … I shall invite them to my little soirée on Wednesday, where I shall present you to what is left of society. ” His eyes crinkled in anticipation. He wasn’t looking at her at all. “My acquaintances will be scandalized by them, not unamusing in itself.”

The man was totally unfeeling. Françoise had never felt so small. She was saved from the guillotine by this dreadful man only for his own amusement. He would never try to help Madame. She felt tears well in her eyes.

That sense of urgency washed over her. There was something dreadful she must do. Pain pierced her head. She put her fingers to her temple, unable to think.

What was there to think about? She couldn’t ask the wicked duc to save Madame. He’d just end up throwing Françoise out of his house in the middle of the night for daring to importune him. And yet, she must. What other way was there to help her friend?

“You are not well, mademoiselle?”

She glanced up to feel his eyes boring into her. That only made her headache worse. “I … I have the headache.”

He sighed, and looked … bored. “Then perhaps you’d better retire to your room.” He snapped his fingers, and even without pulling on the bell rope, the door opened.

Jean stuck his head in. “Your grace?”

“Escort Mademoiselle to her room. Perhaps her dresser can find a vinaigrette.”

All he wanted was to get rid of her. He would never help Madame. She rose, gave a brief curtsy, and stumbled from the room.

“I put your valise in your room, mademoiselle,” Jean called after her. “I’m afraid the rabble stole your purse.”

She hurried up the stairs, wiping her cheeks, wanting only the refuge of her room.

Henri pushed back from the table. In one moment of weakness he had saved her and now he was stuck with the chit until he could rid himself of her. Let that be a lesson to him. A headache. The oldest excuse in the book. He took his glass and the decanter to the window. The dining room looked out on a little garden with a pear tree in the center, surrounded by geraniums.