Chapter 25
Brewster half-carried me to a sumptuous bedroom one of the comtesse’s bland-faced footmen led us to. There, Brewster sobered me up with hot coffee and by dunking my head into a wide basin of water.
The footman remained to assist, keeping his pristine gloves far from my grimy body.
I tried to ask questions as Brewster scrubbed my face and peeled my damp and dusty clothes from me, down to my smalls.
“How did you find me?” I managed around soakings. “Why was Michel roaming the comtesse’s cellars? And what is he doing here?”
“I made the lot of them scour the place when one of them footmen tells me the comtesse was tired of waiting for ye.” Brewster finished toweling off my face and handed me a comb. “Only you could find trouble in house you’re a guest in. As to the other two questions: I don’t know, and I don’t know.”
“Thank you, anyway.” I tugged at my unruly hair, which the mirror showed contained more threads of gray. Or maybe it was the dust. “I feared I’d be too far gone by the time you reached me.”
“Gave me turn, when I went down that hall and found a huge red stain outside the door. Thought someone had gutted you proper.”
“Worth the waste, then. Very good wine, I must say.”
I smoothed my hair the best I could, then let the footman ease me into a clean suit he’d found for me, likely belonging to the comte.
The cut of was a style from a few years ago, but material was fine, with no wear in it. The comte had probably donned this suit once and then set it aside. The coat and trousers were too small for me, but I squeezed myself into them, as I had no choice.
“Glad you enjoyed yourself,” Brewster growled at me. “If you can walk on your own, then His Nibs and her ladyship are waiting for you.”
“I am much better, thank you.” The fresh coffee and the very hot water Brewster had dunked my head into made my skin tingle with warmth. “You are a good nursemaid.”
“I’ve brought plenty of drunk sots back to life, is all. Now, let’s get on.”
Brewster insisted on leading me from the chamber to the meeting, not trusting me not to lose myself again. We left the footman gingerly tidying up my clothes, and trudged through the tiled hall to the staircase I’d so admired on my first visit.
We ascended past the floor where the ballroom lay, emerging into another wide hallway with large windows. The long twilight lingered without, the sky a violet blue.
A corridor hung with tapestries led us to a paneled door painted in pale gray. When I tapped politely, another footmen ushered us into a comfortable room.
This was obviously a private chamber, featuring a desk strewn with papers, a bookcase of well-worn books, soft rugs on the floor, and a gilded teacart presided over by a dour-faced maid. From the woman’s hard-eyed glance I me, I concluded this was Perrault, the comtesse’s lady’s maid and guard dog.
The comtesse rose from a sofa near the teacart, and James Denis, a tall, youngish man with dark hair and blue eyes, likewise stood from where he’d reposed near the window.
“Captain Lacey.” The comtesse swept forward, her plump hands outstretched. “You have been treated abominably, and an apology seems a thin offering for the poor hospitality shown you. I could not believe my ears when Perrault told me what Michel had done.”
I took the comtesse’s offered hands and glanced at the lady’s maid, who moodily poured thick coffee into a tiny porcelain cup. The comtesse spoke in English, so I wasn’t certain how much the maid had understood.
“She told you?” I asked, nonplussed. “How did she know?”
“From Michel.” The comtesse sounded as though this should be no surprise. “He is her nephew. He confessed to Perrault that he had waylaid you. She was appalled, and fetched me at once.”
The comtesse kissed me on both cheeks then released me and waved me to a chair.
From the way Perrault glowered at me as I sank to a gilt chair from the reign of Louis the Fifteenth, I concluded she was only appalled Michel hadn’t taken care of me more permanently.
Denis said not a word during this exchange, and he re-seated himself in silence as the comtesse resumed her place.
“I do not know what Michel feared from me,” I said, enjoying the chair’s cushions cradling my stiff limbs. “I hope Perrault assured him I meant no harm to you, or to anyone.”
“He was unhappy with your inquiries about Lucien Potier,” Denis interjected in his straightforward manner.
“When he saw you arrive, he thought you’d discovered the truth and had come to discuss things with the comtesse.
He intended to leave you in that room until he consulted with his employers as to what to do with you. ”
Perrault handed me a cup of fragrant coffee and thrust another at Denis, her lips pinching. Denis took the coffee with a quiet word of thanks, and Perrault turned her back on him. I believed I’d finally found a person he could not intimidate.
“Then I am right?” I asked unhappily. “The Deveres did kill him?”
The comtesse regarded me with vast sadness.
“Madame.” Perrault abandoned the coffee and went to her. “No, you must not,” she said in French, then continued admonishing her in dialect until the comtesse held up her hand to stop Perrault’s flow of words.
“No, Captain,” the comtesse said, her words tinged with both sorrow and defiance. “I killed Monsieur Potier.”
I froze, my cup in its saucer tilting dangerously in my hand. “Are you certain?” I asked, wondering if she shielded someone
“Of course I am. I’m not ashamed of my deed.
” The comtesse laid her hands in her silk-clad lap, while Denis watched her with sharp attention.
“I was a young woman when Lyon rebelled and was besieged. I’d been married to the comte about seven years by then, and I had two growing sons.
My husband took our boys to safety and begged me to go with him, but this was my home. I would not leave it.”
She confirmed Grenville’s and Donata’s findings about the comte, though I did not soften much to him. Sending his sons out of harm’s way I understood very well. Abandoning his wife to danger, I did not.
“From what I have learned, Potier would visit those he planned to arrest,” I said, my voice gentling. “Did he come here?”
“He did. With soldiers who battered down the gate, killing one of our guards.” The comtesse’s face creased with sorrow and anger.
“The man had worked here since he’d been a boy, grown up here.
And Potier’s soldiers cut him down like he was of no importance.
Potier broke open the front door and trod his dirty boots on my floors.
He expected me to hide in a cupboard, which he’d no doubt have been happy to rip open, but no. I faced him on the stairs.”
I could well imagine the comtesse, her dignity in place, standing above Potier and his soldiers, daring them to advance any further. She must have been a very beautiful woman then, with her comeliness, though grayer now, still intact.
I turned to Denis. “Your letter indicated that the last place Potier planned to go was the Deveres’ ironworks.”
“He did pay them a call,” the comtesse answered before Denis could speak.
“Potier declared that if they’d admit I forced them to aid me in resisting the reprisals, he’d spare them.
They would sign a paper to that effect, and they would be free.
The Devere boys, bless them, refused to betray me.
Their father had been executed months before, and they were already shattered, but they defied him.
And so Potier came here to force me to confess that I fueled the resistance.
Of course I confessed it. I did not hide my intentions to stop the horrors he and his cronies inflicted upon us. ”
“He struck her down,” Perrault said in French, old rage flowing through her words. “He slapped my mistress like she was a peasant, and she fell. I was not having that.”
“My dear Perrault, if you had succeeded in reaching him, you would have been killed on the spot.” The comtesse turned a smile on her maid, one that held great fondness.
“I had not been so foolish as to emerge from my chamber unarmed. I had a loaded pistol with me—a dueling pistol, which belonged to my husband. With it, I shot Potier dead. That menace would terrorize my city no longer.”