Trapped by Scandal (8 page)

Marie Claire nodded, turning her own blue eyes up to Alec, who still leaned over her, supporting her. “I can walk,” she said, with more strength now, seeing the instant relief in Alec's intense gaze. He half lifted her to her feet, and she swayed for just a moment, then straightened. “I can walk,” she repeated, shaking the numbness out of her freed hands.

The man who had cut through the rope gave her a reassuring smile as he slipped his knife into the sheath at his belt. “I'll leave you here, then,” he said. “The fewer we are, the less conspicous.” He raised a hand in farewell and loped off back in the direction of Révolution.

“Come, then.” William gestured down the narrow alley in which they stood. “We'll cut back and then cross the river on the Pont Neuf.” He set off ahead of Alec and Marie Claire.

“Who is he, Alec?” Marie Claire whispered, still dazed and yet conscious of a miraculous sense of safety.

“Just call him William, or Guillaume if we are in French company,” Alec said. “I'll explain everything once we're off the street.”

Hero was still in the Place, surrounded by the screaming horde. She closed her mind to the scene and focused. She had never felt so completely alone before. Marie Claire was safely away with William, Marcus, and Alec. She had to make her own way back to the house. It was what they had agreed upon. The fewer they were, the less likely they would draw attention to themselves. And even though she had agreed to it, she still felt vulnerable and very lonely, despite the mass of humanity pressing around her.

She moved casually away from the guillotine, slithering through the throng all gazing upwards at the rise and fall of the blade. It seemed unbelievable, but William had been right. In the chaos, amidst the stumbling prisoners, their pike-thrusting guards, and the screaming, vengeful
crowd, it
had
been possible to extract Marie Claire as she half fell from the cart with her fellow victims. Her rescuers had been waiting at the cart's tail when the gate was opened, and Alec had caught his fiancée at the moment she took a step forward. The three men had bundled her against them, drawing her beneath the outflung arms of the crowd and away from the cart, and for the moment, at least, it seemed that no one had actually noticed one of the prisoners was missing.

Would they bother to count the heads in the piled baskets at the end of the day's murders? Would they notice the absence of one young woman's head? The St. Juliens were an old and wealthy aristocratic family, but they had never been active in political life or even particularly prominent frequenters of the court at Versailles. Marie Claire would not be well known to the crowd. She would just have been one of the many heads that fell that afternoon—young, pretty, and worthy of death simply because of her name.

Hero reached the riverbank and stopped, breathless, as the fear-fueled energy that had brought her out of Place de la Révolution ebbed, leaving her feeling weak and shaky. She leaned against the low parapet, looking down at the river below, where the great shadow of the Conciergerie on the opposite bank rippled and wavered in the swift current. William had told her not to cross directly into Place St. Michel as she would normally have done but to make her way along the river and cross the ancient rickety wooden bridge at the great cathedral of Notre Dame. And, as always, to be absolutely certain she was not followed.

After a moment, she turned and stood with her back
against the parapet, looking around her with what she hoped was a convincing air of indifference. There were people around, vendors pushing wheeled barrows reeking of fish leftover from the markets and the rotting leaves of vegetables too old to find customers. Voices spilled into the lanes from the open doors of wine shops. Soon enough, they would be packed to the rafters with the crowd from Place de la Révolution, their thirst for blood slaked, their throats hoarse from screaming, and their thirst for wine piqued by the afternoon's spectacle. She needed to get well away from the area before they started streaming out of the square.

She could see no one watching her; indeed, no one seemed to be aware of her as she stood there. She was an unremarkable figure. Feeling stronger and more confident, Hero turned to walk left along the riverbank under the lime trees.

A tall, thin man, his red cap pulled low over his forehead, stood leaning idly in a doorway, watching the woman move away down the river. There was something about her that didn't seem quite right, something that set her apart from the other women in similar garb scurrying around the streets. He had been trained to look for the different, the not quite right, and he set off after the woman, his stride lengthening as she quickened her pace. Her back was too straight, her head held too high. She moved with all the pride and confidence of an aristocrat.

EIGHT

M
arie Claire was flagging as her escorts supported her stumbling steps through the narrow streets. She seemed to be moving through thick sludge, each footstep a gigantic effort despite the strong arms on either side. She found it hard to breathe after the weeks of incarceration in the filthy dungeons of the Conciergerie, where the air had been damp and pestilential and the moans and groans of her despairing fellow prisoners were never silent.

With a muttered curse, Alec bent and lifted her in his arms. She was incredibly light, even for someone who had always been small and fragile—in appearance, at least. But now she seemed almost weightless, and it frightened him. He started at a half run down the street, heedless now of drawing attention to themselves, his one thought to get his beloved into the warmth and safety of the house.

William frowned but followed, quickening his own pace even as his eyes darted from side to side, looking always for a watcher. “Go around the back,” he instructed as they approached the house. “I'll make sure all's clear here.”

Alec turned into the narrow passage alongside the house, carrying Marie Claire easily. He edged the gate
open with his elbow and stepped into the yard, pushing the gate shut with the heel of his boot. The sun had gone down, and a chill was creeping into the evening air as the evening star rose bright against the darkening sky. Marie Claire shivered in his arms, and he cursed again, hugging her tightly against his chest. “Just a few minutes, and you'll be in the warm, sweetheart.” Lamplight showed through the unshuttered window alongside the door. He kicked at the latter, and it was opened almost instantly, a circle of anxious faces turned towards him as he stepped inside with his burden.

William waited on the street until he was certain no one was paying him or the house any attention before rapping on the shutter in the familiar pattern. The door opened, and he stepped quickly inside, demanding over his shoulder as he strode to the kitchen, “Is Marcus back yet?”

“Not yet,” Stephen replied. “All went well?”

“Aye. We have the girl safe, at least.” He walked into the kitchen, where Marie Claire slumped in the rocker in front of the range, Alec kneeling at her feet, chafing her icy hands.

William poured brandy into a glass and brought it over to the girl. “Drink this slowly. It will warm you . . . Alec, she needs food.”

Marie Claire shook her head. “No . . . no . . . please, I couldn't eat, it will make me sick again.” She took a wary sip of the brandy and leaned her head back against the chair, her cheeks deathly white, her fair hair hanging in lank strands around her small face.

William merely nodded his acceptance and went to
pour brandy for himself and Alec. He had just set down the flask when the kitchen door opened to admit Marcus. “All well?” William asked tersely.

“No one followed me.” Marcus helped himself to brandy and turned to look more closely at their rescued prisoner. “Poor girl,” he murmured to William. “She looks half dead.”

“Hardly surprising.” William glanced at the unshuttered window. It was almost full dark. “Where the hell is Hero? She should be back by now.”

“Maybe it took her a while to get out of the crowd,” Marcus suggested. “It was packed pretty tight.”

“Mmm.” William didn't sound convinced. He glanced at Alec, still kneeling beside his fiancée, chafing her hands, urging her to drink the brandy. After a moment, he left the kitchen and opened the door to the street. He looked down the hill, where the darkness seemed to be climbing upwards from the river below. There was no one around, no clop of wooden clogs on the cobbles, although the sounds from the wine shops and taverns in the square at the foot of the hill were clear enough on the still air.

He frowned, tapping his fingers impatiently against his thigh. He should not have left her to make her own way. He had had his doubts, but Hero had sounded so confident, and from everything he'd seen of her, she had an instinct for looking after herself. There was nothing of the naïve ingenue about Lady Hermione Fanshawe. She had made her own way from Dover to Paris, for God's sake. Of course, she could get herself from Place de la Révolution to the Rue St. André des Arts without mishap.

So where was she?

She'd been careless enough once to get herself thrown into the prison of La Force. But then, so had he, he reminded himself. The streets were hazardous at the best of times and to anyone on them. He took a step down the hill and then stopped. There was no point going to look for her; she could be approaching from any one of a number of directions, and he could easily miss her. With a muttered oath, he turned back to the house, glancing once more up and down the quiet, darkened street before going inside.

The great square in front of Notre Dame was usually a crowded public space, but it was quiet when Hero crossed beneath the shadow of the building, heading for the narrow wooden bridge across the river. The clergy were no longer an active presence in the city, or indeed in most of the country, vilified almost as much as the loathed aristocrats, and religious edifices were shuttered if they had not already been ransacked. In the daytime, a thriving market occupied the square, but now, with most of the citizens watching the afternoon executions at the various sites around the city, it was almost deserted. She made her way towards the narrow bridge. It had once been the only pedestrian way across the Seine, but since the erection of the Pont Neuf, it had fallen into disrepair, and the wooden footboards were rotting in places.

As she stepped onto the bridge, a prickle of alarm ran along her spine. Her footstep hesitated for a second, but then she strode out more confidently, the fine hairs on
her nape pricking but her mind clear. If she was being followed, she must not show any sign of awareness or alarm. Halfway across the bridge, she paused, leaning idly against the splintering wooden rail, looking up the river towards the Conciergerie as casually as if she were simply taking an evening stroll, except that every muscle in her body was as taut and rigid as steel.

“
Bon soir, citoyenne.”

The voice from behind her made her heart race, but she folded her arms on the railing and turned her head, offering the speaker a polite nod. “
Citoyen.
” Her heart was like an out-of-control racehorse, but she remained steadily where she was, and after a moment, the man walked on across the bridge to the Quai de la Tournelle on the far bank, his tall, thin figure disappearing into the shadows.

Was he following her? Waiting for her . . . waiting to pounce over there in the shadows? Every inch of her skin warned of danger; she felt like a doe, hearing the hunters' trumpets, the baying of the dogs. And her mind told her, cold and clear, to trust her instincts. The man meant her harm, whether he was an agent of the Committee of Public Safety or simply a man seeing a lone woman as prey. Either way, she was not crossing the bridge now.

Behind her lay the cathedral and beyond that the bustling lanes and houses of the Île St. Louis. She could lose herself there and find some other way back to Rue St. André des Arts. Without a second thought, Hero swung on her heel and walked fast back across the bridge, prepared now to lose herself in the blood-satiated crowds pouring from Place de la Révolution into the square in
front of the cathedral. She didn't look behind her to see if he was coming back across the bridge again but plunged into the nearest crowd of people, dodging and twisting her way to the maze of crooked streets running behind the cathedral, avoiding the darker ones, keeping to those lit by lamps from house windows. She had no idea of the time, intent only on keeping herself surrounded by people, blending with them as she threaded her way through the maze, finally ducking down a shallow flight of stone steps to the riverbank, where a wherry bobbed against the quay, its owner sucking on a pipe, staring at the black waters of the Seine.

“Ten sous to take me across to the steps at St. Michel?” she asked, pulling her red cap down over her forehead with one hand as she dug into the pocket of her grimy apron with the other.

The wherry man spat into the river, took the handful of coins she held on her flat palm, and untied the little craft while Hero stepped into it, sitting down hastily as it dipped and swayed with her movements.

The river was quite narrow at this point, but Hero had specified the steps at St. Michel, so the wherry man had to pull strongly upriver against the evening tide. Hero's gaze remained riveted to the far bank as they went beneath the Notre Dame bridge, lit fitfully now by sconced torches flaring in the evening breeze. Was he still waiting? But he couldn't be. She had no idea how long she'd been dodging the lanes and crowds, but too long, surely, for anyone to be waiting for her to reappear. And she was positive no one was on her trail now.

At the steps, the oarsman offered no help as she clambered out of the rickety boat, merely whistling through his teeth as he gazed trancelike at the dark river. Hero dived once more into the rowdy crowds packing the narrow medieval alleys of St. Michel. It was a short walk to Place St. André des Arts, through a fetid lane, and from the square, she began the steep climb up the hill. Hero was as sure as she could be that no one was on her heels as she left the noise and drunken revelry behind her. But when she reached the door of number 7, she walked past it, crossed the street, ducked into an alley, and waited, listening. Nothing. No warning sixth sense, no eyes on her back, no loitering presence on the street.

Confident at last, she walked back to the door of number 7 and rapped the rhythm on the shutters.

The door was opened almost instantly, and she found herself facing a wall of fury. “Where the devil have you been? Everyone else has been back for hours.” Even as he spoke, William's hands were on her, yanking her into the house so fast her feet seemed to lose touch with the ground. He was propelling her upstairs, his hand at the small of her back, driving her upwards even as his angry words poured over her. His voice was low but nonetheless ferocious as he pushed her into the small bedchamber on the top floor. “Do you have any idea what we've been going through, worrying about you? Your brother's beside himself . . .”

His hands were on her upper arms now, his grip tight as he shook her, the guilt, anger, and fear of the last several hours finally unpenned.

“For God's sake, girl, it's hell out there.”

“Do you think I don't know that?” Hero cried in an undertone as fierce as his. “I've been dodging and ducking those savage beasts for hours. Just stop it . . . let me go.” She twisted desperately in his hold, and then abruptly, her angry protests were lost as his arms came around her, encircling her, holding her tight against the taut, muscular power of his body, and his mouth hard on hers silenced her.

The maelstrom of anger, passion, confusion, and relief coalesced into a single need. She fell back onto the bed as he came down with her, his hands pushing up her skirts, pulling apart her bodice, as she fumbled with his britches, tugged at his shirt. They came together in a glorious surge of sensation, in the violent aftermath of anger, of relief after the hideous tensions of the afternoon's events. Hero's back arched as the tight coil of rough passion seemed to tear her apart. William's hips pressed into hers before he wrenched himself sideways with a low cry, grasping her to him so that she felt his seed pulsing hot against her belly, and her body felt as if it were melting, simply a formless mass, her limbs sprawled where they fell.

But finally, reality intruded, the contours of the small room took shape once more, and the feel of the mattress beneath her became solid. Hero lay still and silent for a moment, wondering why she had responded to the violence of his lovemaking. He hadn't hurt her, and she had responded with the same flaring passion, but it had been like nothing she had ever experienced or could have imagined.

He lay heavily still half upon her, crushing her into the bed, and she asked softly, “What was that? Why such ferocity?”