Chapter 31
Thirty-One
“Your dog has entangled me with Lady Anne Dinsmore!” Madeleine exclaimed dramatically, thrusting the squirming pug at a startled Alix.
Taking the dog, who licked her face enthusiastically, Alix demanded, “What on earth are you talking about?”
Madeleine settled with a flourish into a large blue damask armchair across from Alix.
“I decided to go out walking today in the village. There’s a surprisingly talented milliner there, were you aware of that?
” Without waiting for an answer, she continued, “I was admiring the hats when Roland”—she glanced at the pug with an arched brow; he licked his nose and stared back—“took off without warning. The next thing I know, he’s completely twisted around Anne Dinsmore’s skirts. ”
“She has that effect on the male species.” Alix couldn’t resist.
“This is not amusing, ce n’est pas du tout,” Madeleine said tightly.
Alix schooled her features to attend to her mother’s distress. “What did she say to offend you?”
Madeleine inhaled sharply and placed a hand against her tightly corseted waist. “She suggested I could be a grandmother.”
“You are going to be a grandmother.” Alix smoothed the mound of her belly.
“That’s beside the point.”
Alix waited for her mother to continue.
“And then she had the nerve to ask after Elizabeth. Can you imagine? After everything she has said and done to that poor girl?” Madeleine sniffed indignantly. “And the way she proceeded to bring up the story at nearly every function she attended.”
“Her retribution for my having stolen Rafe from her.”
“Absurd. Anyone who saw him last winter knows that Moreham was mad for you. Why, the first time he laid eyes upon you in London he behaved as if you belonged to him—”
“She did.”
At these words, Alix and Madeleine both turned their heads toward the door to the library, where Rafe stood. “How long have you been standing there?” Madeleine asked.
“Long enough to feel compelled to remind you that Roland is your dog, my dear mother-in-law, and to wonder how you responded to Lady Anne.” He strode over to his wife’s chair and kissed her. He received a lick from Roland as well.
“I know how to deal with spiteful women. I let her know, most casually, that far from being disgraced, Elizabeth is still in demand amongst members of our society.”
Rafe glanced sharply at Madeleine, drawing his brows together in a tight frown.
“Do not make that face at me, Moreham, I spent many years at the court of Versailles. I know how to be diplomatic.” Madeleine smoothed her plum-colored skirts.
“And besides, I said nothing that was untrue. Elizabeth is at Hartsdale. I imagine she must be quite a favorite of the Norcrofts, considering how much of the summer she has spent with them.”
A muscle in Rafe’s jaw twitched. His hand curved around the arm of Alix’s chair so tightly that if the roses in the brocade pattern had been real, they would have been pressed into perfume. Alix covered his hand and looked up at him.
“You two are keeping secrets from me.” Madeleine eyed them sharply. “I can tell from the way you are regarding one another. I do not like secrets, so confess!”
Alix cocked her head questioningly at Rafe. “It is Elizabeth…” she began slowly. “Not so much a secret as a…concern.”
“Yes?” Madeleine prodded.
“Her letters arrive regularly, but…something seems amiss. For example, in the one that arrived this past week, she describes a delightful outing to the ruins of an old Norman castle. Yet she says the outing was last Tuesday, and she raves about the lovely weather—”
“Last Tuesday?” Madeleine pursed her lips. “The day of the dreadful downpour?”
Alix nodded. “And there have been other errors, little ones, but taken all together, well, it is enough now to raise suspicions…”
“So why do you not ride over to Hartsdale and see if she is there?” Madeleine looked pointedly at Rafe.
“And if she is not?” he inquired dryly.
“Disaster?”
“Precisely.” Rafe looked as if he might tear the chair arm loose from the frame.
“There is always the chance that she is not with Dinsmore…” Alix offered.
“Very true.” Madeleine folded her hands in her lap. “Most likely the errors in the letters were honest ones; I mistake the date all the time.” She smiled. “I am sure that is it. Indeed, I am certain there is a bright side to Roland’s encounter with Lady Anne this morning.”
“And what is that?” Rafe’s tone was skeptical.
Madeleine smiled. “Wherever Elizabeth may be, thanks to me, Lady Anne believes she is mending her ways at Hartsdale.”
The soldier called Jean stared distastefully at Joley’s battered eyepatch. Then he called over his shoulder to the soldier who’d given him the order to inspect the eye. “I’m standing guard on these two,” he said, gesturing with his musket at David and Andre. “You flip up the patch.”
The thin soldier, Henri, waved the identification papers he had taken from James. “My hands are filled.”
“Give ’em back, then, citizen.”
“Not until we know whether these people are spies, citizen.”
“Regard,” James whispered to Marcus, “the discipline of the new order.”
“You.” Jean turned to James. “What were you saying? I won’t have prisoners speaking in code.”
“I’m sorry,” James said in a tone that was less than apologetic. “I was unaware we were prisoners. What I said to my companion here was that I hoped your stomach was in good order.”
“And why should you be concerned with the workings of my stomach?”
James put a hand to his gorge. “Because I have seen Duval without his patch. Indeed, when I hired the man, I insisted he wear it. Believe me, citizen, when the man says his eye is not pretty, he is generously understating the case.”
The stout soldier glared at Henri, who snapped, “Step to it, and let us find the truth of this matter.”
“Why am I the one always having to see to the nasty work?” Jean muttered, walking toward Duval as though he had heavy stones in his boots. “The farmer with the boil, the baby with the spots, the old woman with the vomiting sickness…”
“These are desperate times!” Henri said sternly. “The enemies of the people will take on any guise to escape the retribution of the Republic.” He waved with his handful of identity papers at Duval’s patch. “Inspect it.”
Jean’s expression was grim, and his fingers shook as he reached for the stained scrap of leather.
“Is this really necessary?” Elizabeth tried to step forward but was prevented by the rifle of one of the guardsmen. “Look at the man.” She gestured over the bar of the gun. “Look at his clothes, his hair, his teeth. You can’t honestly believe—”
“Do not tell us what to believe, citizeness.” Henri glared at her. “Your kind has done that in this country for far too long.” He turned back to Jean. “Lift the damn thing!”
As if he were flipping a spider from a plate, Jean flipped up the patch, covered his mouth, and staggered back.
“What did you see?” Henri demanded.
“Yellow ooze, clots of blood”—Jean gagged through his fingers—“and the devil knows what else.” He whispered, “Bits of eyeball.”
“Are you certain?”
“Feel free to look for yourself!”
Henri unconsciously took a step backward. “Your word is sufficient.” He nodded at Joley. “Cover that up.”
Joley smiled, revealing his stained teeth. “As you wish, citizen.”
James saw a grin flicker across Andre’s face; it was truly astonishing what eggs, jam, a dab of paint, and spirit gum could achieve.
Henri, who was still holding the company’s papers in his hands, looked around at them and at the stout soldier who was wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and raised his voice.
“You think it is unnecessary to be so thorough in our inspections? To raise a woman’s skirts and to expose a working man’s festering wound?
And I tell you yes, a thousand times, yes.
The citizens of this country are fighting for their lives against the insidious forces of the ancient regime.
Our enemies are clever. They try to disguise themselves as friends, neighbors, sympathetic foreigners.
No one is above suspicion and no one is above the law. ”
“Revolution is not for those with delicate stomachs,” he continued, looking pointedly at Jean. “Yesterday we received word that Citizen Marat stormed the National Assembly and expelled twenty-two members—Girondins.”
“But why?” Surprise made James speak before he thought. “They were amongst the first aristocrats to renounce their titles. And all of them voted for the execution of the king…”
“Do not call him the king; he died as Citizen Capet, nothing more,” Henri corrected him sharply.
“What you say about the Girondins is true, but we have since learned that they have been deceiving the people. Fortunately, Citizen Marat uncovered their perfidy. Most have been imprisoned. Some have fled to Caen, but rest assured they will find no haven there. Or here.”
“That is in the opposite direction of where we are headed. Surely you do not suspect us of being amongst their number.”
“Not them.” The thin man handed Joley his papers, apparently unaware—or uncaring—that the comte’s hand was shaking. Then he returned Marcus’s, Andre’s, and David’s. When James stepped forward, he put up his hand.
“Is there a problem?” James said, frowning.
“No problem at all. At least not for them.” He waved a dismissive hand. “They are free to go.”
“I thought you said you did not suspect us of being Girondins,” Elizabeth said.
“And so I do not, citizeness. After all, you are not French.” The thin man smiled, showing sharp yellow teeth. “I suspect you of being spies.”
“On what grounds? Our papers are all in order,” James said more coolly than he felt; he knew their papers were in order—was the man guessing, or had something gone wrong?
“We have had reports of a pair of spies—a tall blond man with a scar on his cheek and a young woman with brown hair—operating in this area.” The thin man waggled a finger at them. “So, we shall escort you back to Paris and let the tribunals sort it out.”