Chapter Twenty-Three
Rue du Four
Paris, France
“Who lives there?” Her husband shielded his eyes from the brilliance of the morning sun as it silvered the white stone on the townhouses that spread for over a mile toward the River Seine.
“That man who just left that house?” Inès pulled close the brim of her enormous, bell-shaped cloche hat as they stood at the corner of Rue du Four.
They had arrived in Paris last night and taken a room in an auberge near Les Invalides, the hospital and home for wounded French soldiers that Louis XIV had built nearly a century ago.
Weather on the left bank this morning was blustery off the Seine, and Inès had to hang on to her hat.
So did Evan grab at his own. They had taken breakfast at a small café in sight of this particular house, watching the comings and goings.
Now, appearing for all the world to hail a public fiacre, they lingered as Inès focused on the five-story house she remembered well.
Built more than a century ago, it was one of those grand Parisian houses aristocrats had had built to stay in the city when they visited.
This was one of those delicate beauties the Parisians called h?tel particulier near the Saint-Germain-de-Pres Abbey.
Lost to the Vicomte de Neufchateau, who originally owned it—the café owner had told them this morning—a banker had repossessed it years ago.
That banker was often in and out of Bonaparte’s favor.
Inès feared the one she sought to help them might not still live there.
But she narrowed her gaze on the swarthy fellow who had stepped off the front landing and taken to the street.
Rafe, with whom they had been reunited this morning in that small café in Saint Germain, had done his work by delivering a note to the majordom.
The older, gray-haired man with a long nose and bulging, pale eyes who had answered the door lingered there, watching his recent caller stride away.
“Durham interested him,” she told Evan, her trepidation dissolving with this small success. “And he read the note.”
“Twice. Is the butler the same one you knew years ago?”
“He is. I recognize him. He is still the majordom of the house. I am so relieved.” She had reason to be.
Few in Paris were those she could call upon to help Durham, Evan, and herself.
“His name is Monsieur Gaspard. He was once a reliable comrade to Lord Ramsey and Amber when she was pursued by Vaillancourt.” She licked her lips and took her husband’s arm, rejoicing at one small triumph. “Let’s go.”
Just as Durham’s note to Gaspard had stated, Gaspard would soon receive old friends in the ruelle. Inès and Evan hurried to the kitchen door of the back service entrance in the small alley. Evan rapped on the door, and it was no time before it fell open to them.
The man inside gazed at Evan with curious yet friendly eyes. But his view of Inès began with wide-eyed shock, then sweet delight and, finally, dark concern. “Come in. Come in. Mademoiselle—?”
“Collette,” Inès supplied before the man could continue. Then she held out her hand and he pulled her into the small hall. Evan followed and shut the door.
Their host, good fellow, had opened his arms wide to Inès. “Collette. Ba! Of course you are.” He laughed, and so did she, as they hugged each other. “Collette, poof! A ruse.”
She pushed back to get a good look at him. “I am so happy to see you looking well, monsieur.”
“Nothing has changed about me,” he said with firmness in his demeanor. “I welcome you…Collette.” But then he eyed Evan once more.
She introduced Evan with relief and no small amount of pleasure. “My husband. Monsieur La Porte.”
“I see.” Gaspard examined Evan head to toe. “You two present a mascarade?”
“We do,” Evan told him with a nod. “We are from Toulon. Porcelain merchants.”
Gaspard winced. “You have papers?”
“Good ones,” Evan assured him.
“You do not speak often, Monsieur La Porte, because of the sickness in your throat, I assume?”
“C’est correct, Monsieur Gaspard.”
The man shook his head. “We must attend to that accent privately, monsieur.”
“We have not much time for good French lessons, Gaspard,” Inès told him. “We are on urgent business.”
“Have you rooms? Accommodations?”
They both nodded.
“Where?” He was suspicious.
They told him.
“Non. Terrible. Come! Come to the salon. We will talk more. Have you eaten?”
“Oui, so we do not need—”
“But you do! No arguments. None. My chef, she is superb. You come now with me.” He raised a finger to the air and off he trotted down the hall.
He opened a large wooden door to the kitchen, and aromas of fresh bread and roast chicken wafted out.
He held up a palm and said, “One moment, s’il vous pla?t.
” He soon returned, leading them both like a family of ducks up the back stairs to the first-floor library of well-stocked shelves and wood paneling that lent an air of privacy and seclusion.
The few seats were plushly upholstered wing chairs that recalled baroque Louis Quatorze style, favored by the original owners.
They—Inès knew from Amber—had once been aristocrats, a few of whom had been hunted, imprisoned, and died on the guillotine.
They were the family of Vivienne, Countess of Appleby, and half-sister to the notorious French agent—and Drury Lane actress—Charmaine Massé.
Charmaine, who knew La Mère…
Inès suppressed her shiver at the memory of the woman.
She was not here for the spy. She constantly blocked the creature from her mind, once, twice, three times a day.
She could not tolerate much fear in her days or nights—and she strove diligently to control her mind.
She had work to do. With Evan, she would accomplish it. Durham was here to help.
I need only success. Only Luc free.
She took the chair Gaspard offered. Evan took another near her.
Gaspard faced them. “I will arrange for you to take rooms with a friend. You will go. Whatever you are about, you need solitude. I will assure you of it. Now. Brandy?”
They accepted with small smiles.
When he returned with a tray laden with three servings of golden liquid, he offered them their glasses and sat opposite them. “Never too early in the day for a fine drink, eh?”
“Our supply of good cognac in Britain is very small,” Evan told him, raising high his glass in honor of the welcome.
“I can imagine. We drink our own and congratulate ourselves that we have good spirits to drink, if not to celebrate.” He sipped from his own glass. “Tell me what you require and it will be yours.”
“We need information,” Evan said. “We have only one mission here. We intend to do it quickly and leave. We cannot risk the gendarmes.”
“Nor any suspicion by the secret police.” Inès had learned while in Boulogne how Vaillancourt had tripled the number of his agents here in his own country. Since she had left, she predicted, he had added many more. “We must be invisible to Vaillancourt.”
Gaspard sat back, his pale gaze shrouded with terror. “Does he know your face, my dear Collette?”
She swallowed her memory of how Vaillancourt had taken her arm and led her away one day in Boulogne while she wished only to play for the assembled admirals and generals. “He does.”
Gaspard inhaled mightily, then sat forward.
“I read in the scandal sheets what he attempted to do to your friend, Augustine Bolton, and her lover, the Earl of Ashley. I was witness to what he tried to do to Amber St. Antoine. Her Lord Ramsey brought her here to hide from Vaillancourt when she was so ill. She thought that devil had poisoned her.”
Inès reached over and took Gaspard’s hand in hers. “Fear not. Lady Ramsey is very healthy. As beautiful as ever and happily married.”
Gaspard beamed, astonished and pleased. “Vaillancourt’s poison did not work?”
“If you saw the lady now, you would say she is in the bloom of health. She prepares to bring into the world her third child. Gus, Lady Ashley, is well, too. She had her third child a few months ago. Both ladies are in robust health.”
“And well away from danger,” he said with a smile of satisfaction. “And here you are, my dear lady, rushing into it. Why? Why attempt anything here? You know the challenges. Perhaps not so well as when you were here in Paris, but…”
She would be honest with him. “I am aware, monsieur, of my shortcomings.”
“We have a challenge, Monsieur Gaspard. We must meet it.”
Inès was grateful that Evan could speak when she found it difficult to find words for her audacity.
Gaspard shot a derisive look at Evan. “You love her? Yet you are here to do whatever it is? This is not wise.”
“She is the love of my life, monsieur. I would dissuade her from this action if I could. But I cannot. I will not even try. She is committed, and so am I. In this, I hope you will help us.”
The man sighed. “No matter, I will help you. It is my life’s purpose to fight for right and justice. I assume you are here to do the same. We go on. So, tell me what you need.”
Inès met Evan’s consoling gaze. Then she turned to Gaspard. “We need the name of a guard whom we can bribe.”
Gaspard stared into a thunderous silence. At last, he asked, “What does he guard?”
She pressed her lips together. “La Force.”
“That is a great challenge. For that, I think you must seek out a compatriot of mine.”
“Tell us,” Inès urged him.
“We will do whatever he says,” Evan added.
“I will give you her address. I never speak her name in this regard.” Gaspard glanced at Inès with compassion. “You will know the address.”
After he wrote it down, she took it and gasped. “I did not know this of her.”
“Few do.”
Inès nodded. “We will seek her out. A note to one of her servants, I think, would be appropriate.”
“True.” For a long minute, the fellow struggled to speak. Then he said, “What else might you want?”
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