CHAPTER EIGHT #2
Jemima positively pouted. “Well, I never thought to hear you say such a thing, Miss Grace! Don’t you know as he wouldn’t go without saying goodbye to you?”
To Grace’s dismay, a choking sob escaped her. She controlled it instantly, but not before the maid had noticed.
“There, now, I knew it! You’re as down in the mouth as you could be, and no wonder.”
“Be quiet, Jemima!” The snap in her voice was unkind, but Grace needed all her defences. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Pray just do as I tell you and lock up. And go to bed!”
The maid sniffed and thrust her nose in the air. “Just as you wish, miss. Only I knows what I know, and them as lives longest will see the most.”
With which, she swept out, her hand protective around the candle flame, leaving Grace prey to a nagging desire to throw off all restraint and give way to a hearty bout of weeping.
She suppressed it, instead returning her attention to the bureau shelves, and listening for the sound of Jemima’s footsteps as she went about shutting up the house for the night.
At last she could be heard tramping upstairs. Grace waited until the echo of her feet upon the upper stairway had ended, and then she slipped the catch and pulled out the shelf. In a moment she was in possession of all Henri’s papers.
In the light of new knowledge, the unsealed papers suddenly took on significance.
Details about a trial, and witnesses? Whose trial?
Some poor wretch who must lose his head through Henri’s diligent work?
Then why should he have kept it with him, preserved carefully among papers he insisted were dangerous?
Grace studied it more closely under the light of the candelabrum, reading carefully through the French.
Her eye caught on a name among the witnesses.
Jean-Marc Loriot. Loriot a witness? But he was in the same trade as Henri.
Her heart beat a little faster as she subjected the other names to a minute inspection.
One was smudged and unreadable, the other partially so.
She made out the letters n-n-e and then Daudet.
Recognition clicked. Etienne? The surname of the second of Henri’s would-be murderers escaped her.
Had it been Daudet? And if it were, was the other perhaps Augustin?
Her pulse leaped as the inference hit her.
Had this been Henri’s preparation for his own trial?
Had he thought of these, his erstwhile friends, as witnesses in his behalf?
But Jean-Marc had turned against Henri. The others too.
Only she knew from Henri’s guarded speech that Loriot was the instigator.
What had Henri done that this enemy could turn the other two against him also?
Grace’s heart was thumping, hope rising in her breast. What she hoped for, she could scarce decide.
Henri had said those men would kill for the papers.
Because they were named therein as his alleged witnesses?
And if they had the papers, would they leave Henri alone?
Somehow she doubted it, though she could not say why.
He, not merely his papers, was a danger to them.
Why? What had he done that they had not? Or was it something they had all done, for which Henri was to take the blame?
Setting down the sheet on the trial, she picked up the one listing names, and marked according to their situation. Grace traced the names with her finger.
Alphonse — watched. Bertrand — trustworthy. Marcel — two asterisks. Others with similar notations. And was that a place name — Dieppe? What did that mean? Someone called Jules at Dieppe. Dieppe was on the French coast, one of the ports for a Channel crossing.
Excitement mingled with the thread of hope. Grace bent closer over the paper. Yes, there was a name against Amiens, another at Rouen, if she was reading them aright. Could this be a list of potential allies? Those who might be depended upon to give Henri shelter at need, as he made his escape?
She could not make out an entire route from Paris, she did not know it well enough, and perhaps Henri had made as devious a detour in France as he had planned to make in England.
If any had helped him, he could not wish the list of their names to pass into hands with power to denounce them.
But Jean-Marc must wish to know such names.
A pattern was beginning to emerge. Remembering the little map, Grace laid down the list and looked for the otherwise plain sheet in which the papers had originally been wrapped.
Study it as she would, she could make nothing of it, and could only assume it formed a sketch of one of the places through which Henri had passed en route to England.
Setting it down, she picked up the two sealed documents.
A feeling of dread took hold of her. Sir James had said Henri had been a republican, aide to Robespierre.
With that dictator’s death, had Henri faced trial as one who had worked alongside him?
Finding his proposed witnesses against him, had he then taken flight for England, knowing he was otherwise doomed?
He had himself told her the sealed documents contained the truth.
But he had also said Grace must then become his judge.
She did not know if she was equal to taking that role.
She sat with the documents in her fingers for a space of time that stretched in her mind into eternity.
She felt as if she held Henri’s life in her hands, as she had held it that far-off day when he had sunk unconscious into her destiny.
Only that time she had acted on instinct.
This time she had a decision to make. One that her heart refused.
A slight alien sound distracted her. Grace turned, and her heart jolted. Standing just inside the parlour doorway was Henri.
He had not meant to startle her. When he had seen her so concentrated upon the documents he at once recognised, it had thrown out of his head the greeting he had meant to make.
And now there was that in her face which held him motionless, a strand of puzzlement licking across the anticipation.
He had been looking forward to seeing her reaction, ready to delight in her joy.
Her first words were like a douche of cold water.
“How did you get in?”
Henri felt the first stirrings of disquiet. He answered readily enough. “I have been in since before Jemima has locked up.” Was she paling? “Ma chère, I meant not to frighten you.”
“Where were you, then?” A disappointing reserve in her voice.
“In my room. I have made already the bed, for that Jemima should not know I am here.”
“Oh, she didn’t know?”
He let out a faint laugh. “You think I have taken her in my confidence?”
Grace looked away from him, and he noted the sealed papers were clutched tightly between her fingers. She was different, her attitude wholly altered towards him. What had changed? He waited a moment, but she did not speak.
“Grace?”
She started slightly. And then, as if compelled by some inner purpose, she began stuffing the papers into the cache.
He watched her replace the shelf and thrust it back into place.
Was there something she had seen in the papers that troubled her?
But unless she had broken the seals, which he had seen was not the case, there was nothing in them more than she had read before.
Henri was conscious of frustration. He wanted to pursue it, but a more pressing need was making itself felt. “Grace, I do not understand what happens, but this I must say. I have hunger like a horse!”
She looked at him then, and there was consternation in her face. She stood up, lifting the candelabrum, and he was warmed by a less acrid note in her voice.
“I had not thought of that. We had best go to the kitchen and see what can be found for you.”
He stood aside to allow her to pass, noting with dismay that she gave him as wide a berth as the little parlour would permit.
Paying no heed to the dull ache in his shoulder, he followed her into the kitchen and found a platter and a knife, while Grace dug out bread and cheese, together with a hunk of cold roast beef and the remains of a boiled chicken.
“Would you like coffee? Or there is a bottle of wine left from those Reuben brought for you.”
“Wine,” Henri decided, feeling that he needed the warmth just now.
Grace had placed the candelabrum on the kitchen table, and she moved it closer to the food she had laid out, inviting Henri to sit.
“Will you sit with me?”
She could think of no excuse that would not entail the explanations she was determined not to make.
She dragged another of the three kitchen chairs to the other side of the table, and sat down in shadow.
Henri was already slicing the roast, with a slight rigidity of his left arm.
Watching him, Grace discovered she was blazingly angry.
Her eyes fell to his plate, and the sight of the growing pile of meat reminded her she had scarcely eaten today. A gnawing started up at her insides, mingling with the rage.
She stood up. “You can cut some for me as well,” she said, her tone curt, and went to fetch another plate.
Resuming her seat, she found Henri frowning over his work. He cast her a glance in which she read unspoken criticism. The fury erupted. “You need not look at me like that! As if it is I who has been less than honest!”
Henri laid down the carving knife. His tone was dangerously quiet. “You can explain this, please?”
Grace looked down. “Later.”
Unexpectedly, the gruff note touched him. He waited a moment, but she said nothing further. He leaned over to take her plate, and laid a few slices of beef upon it. “Do you wish the chicken?”
Her head shook. “Bread, if you please. I will cut myself a little cheese.” So saying, she reached across and drew the plate of crumbly white cheese towards her. She glanced about the table. “Butter. I forgot the butter.”