Chapter 5
It cost her, but she held Nathaniel’s intent gaze.
“Aye, as I can, I’ll aid you.”
Coming from this man, those words had the sound of a vow.
His eyes . . . A nonsensical thought, but they reminded her of a tiger’s-eye stone from India that she’d seen in the British Museum. Before, they’d looked dark brown flecked with amber. The way the growing light hit them just now, they were cognac-colored with streaks of coffee.
He blinked, freeing her from the inane thoughts, and rose, walking to a window. He stood there for several minutes, hands clasped loosely behind his back, before turning back to her.
“There is someone I want you to meet. A friend. And she will most certainly have better food to offer you than I did.”
The friend of Julie; ou, la nouvelle Hélo?se?
“I have some writing to briefly attend first. If you wish to refresh yourself, there is water in the basin.” Nathaniel collected paper, pen, ink, and blotter from a drawer and reseated himself.
His posture was casual and he’d seemingly dismissed her from his attention, but she doubted he missed anything.
She slipped behind the privacy screen to see to her needs and then returned to the basin, dampening her handkerchief and loosening the neck of her blouse.
Behind the screen once more, she washed what she could without fully stripping to the waist. Nathaniel’s pen was audibly at work, but she still felt vulnerable with blouse unlaced and chemise pulled aside.
Such a strange situation. Yet she was tentatively more hopeful than she’d been in some time. Perhaps it was unwise to have faith in Nathaniel’s words.
I know little of him beyond his investigation of Mr. Compton.
He’s some sort of intelligence officer or agent, perhaps, and cannot speak of his own work.
Such would not make him inherently untrustworthy, merely secretive.
Understandably so. But she didn’t think he meant her harm, and she believed him that he would help her.
For the first time since Da’s death, she did not feel so alone with the burden of finding Lucy.
Putting her clothing to rights, she emerged and moved to the mirror to attempt arranging her hair into something neater.
She’d lost some of the pins in their struggle and more in the fiacre; the remainder had come free in the course of the night.
She’d twisted her hair off her face into something practical when she woke, but her hair was too heavy to stay so for long on its own.
The pen ceased scratching. Nathaniel’s eyes in the mirror arrested her hands: He was watching her.
He looked back to his note, and she returned to the task of untangling her hair. Conscious of his gaze on her periodically, she determinedly ignored his reflection as she tugged at a particularly knotted strand.
“You have a hairbrush.” His voice was low as he again met her eyes. “Would you like it now?”
“Please.” She didn’t mean for her voice to be so thready as she stepped aside.
He relocked the drawer immediately after removing her valise. Her garments were folded as neatly as she’d left them, but the pistol was gone, no doubt wherever the dirk and boot knife now resided.
She drew the brush through her hair, her eyes returning to Nathaniel. He was watching her again. She looked away, flustered.
“Your hairbrush is inscribed with the letter B,” he remarked. “Blanchet, for your mother’s family?”
“Yes,” she confirmed. Her hand was not trembling, but she felt oddly shaky. “One of the only possessions Maman brought with her from France. A gift from her father, Francois Blanchet.”
Nathaniel watched her a moment longer before bending his head back to his paper.
As she finished brushing her hair and began to arrange it with a few of the pins, he paused only once, without looking up, to ask her the spelling of her mother’s birth name and her own.
She finished with her hair before he completed his note.
He sanded the paper and folded it carefully once dry; into one of his waistcoat pockets it went. He began a second note, far shorter than the first and completed quickly.
For a former soldier, his hands were deceptively elegant, long fingered and well proportioned.
Her cap was lying on top of the dresser, still damp and the worse for wear after the rain and the struggle last night. She discarded the idea of wearing it and reached for her bonnet instead.
“You will not need that,” Nathaniel said. “You shouldn’t wear it again in any case.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I recognized it, having seen it more than once. Someone else might as well.”
Someone like Compton. Her skin crawled. She had tried to be careful, but the fact was that she was not used to intrigue, and she’d fallen so easily into Nathaniel’s hands, evidence that she’d not been nearly as discreet as she’d hoped.
She left the bonnet where it was. “I do not know where we are.” If he trusted her now, a little, perhaps he’d tell her.
“Very near the Porte Saint-Denis.”
One of the gated entrances to the city. She cast about in her mind for a mental map but could not recall the location of the Porte Saint-Denis.
“The northern edge of the city,” he added. It was unnerving that he should read her so easily. She wished he were half so transparent as she evidently was.
“Where are we walking?”
“Not far. Just down the stairs, in fact. My friend runs an establishment in this building, and I on occasion use these rooms above. You will be safest staying with her while I make some inquiries and attend to other business.”
No doubt some of those inquiries directly concerned her. He did trust her a little—but only a little. “What sort of establishment?”
He tapped his thumb several times against his thigh. “A maison de tolérance. Do you know the meaning?”
She shook her head. She comprehended the words—house of tolerance—but did not understand the term.
“It is a licensed brothel, registered with the préfecture de Police de Paris.”
“And your— This is a friend of yours? Who runs a brothel?” And he was leaving her there? Had she misjudged him after all? Misplaced trust in him?
She sat, boneless, in one of the chairs.
Nathaniel moved carefully, stopping an arm’s reach from her before crouching down.
“It is nothing like Les Moineaux, nor am I anything like Compton. My friend, Amélie Laval, owns and manages L’Orchidée.
She will care for you as a guest.” Nathaniel held out his right hand to her, palm up.
“I know of nowhere else in this city where you will be as secure while we sort things through. She is someone safe in Paris, someone I have trusted before in dangerous times. Do you understand what I’m saying? ”
Yes. An oblique confirmation that he was involved in some sort of undercover work. Amélie Laval as well, in some capacity.
He’d trusted her with that knowledge. Her heart calmed a little, although her pulse still roared in her ears. She nodded her head shakily.
“I understand you’re apprehensive, but I mean you no harm. No matter what I implied last night, I don’t hurt women. I won’t hurt you. Can you trust me that far?”
His hand was still extended, palm up. His fingers were callused, a fresh ink-stain across two of them. A faded white scar ran the length of his smallest finger and disappeared into his palm.
She sought out his tiger’s-eyes once more. His hand was warm when she placed her own in it, his fingers strong as they enfolded hers.
“Yes, I’ll trust you that far.”
Nate had conferred with Amélie many times in her private sitting room and did not require her maid to show the way. As he pushed open the door, Isobel drew and released a deep breath, but her steps didn’t falter.
Amélie was seated at an embroidery frame, backlit by the late morning light that poured through floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a tiny garden enclosed by a fence. The light made a halo of the cornsilk-blonde hair braided and coiled elegantly at her nape.
She rose gracefully upon hearing their entry, a smile lighting her face as she extended her hands in welcome.
“Nathaniel, mon cher, how glad I am to see you this morning,” she said in French, placing her hands in his and leaning forward to kiss his cheek.
“And you are Mrs. Graham. Nathaniel has sent ahead only the shortest of notes that I might expect a guest.”
“I apologize for the intrusion, Mme Laval.” Isobel’s formal French was even, but her eyes revealed her nerves.
“It is not truly Madame, for I have never been married. You must instead call me Amélie.” Amélie, smiling, drew Isobel’s hands into her own.
Isobel gave a small smile in return. “Then you must call me Isobel.”
Despite Isobel’s understandable reserve, Amélie would undoubtedly soon win her over; Amélie’s warmth was entirely unfeigned.
She had always been a bit of an enigma: She was one of the main points of contact in Paris and as a result held more than her share of secrets capable of determining the fates of France and Britain alike—probably a score of other nations besides—and yet she remained one of the most genuine women of his acquaintance.
“Come, Isobel, and sit.” The tilt of an elegant wrist indicated a grouping of furniture between the windows.
“Has Nathaniel fed you this morning, ma chère? No? That is most inhospitable of him, but I am sure he had his reasons, among them that he, himself, does not eat enough. I am certain for you I can do better than this.” She maneuvered Isobel towards the most comfortable of the chairs.
“She’s had little to eat in recent days,” he cautioned.
Amélie’s eyes were shrewd. “Then you must eat slowly to start. Coffee? Chocolat chaud?”
“Coffee, please. Thank you.”
“And for you, mon ami?”
“Coffee,” he replied.
“You will pardon me a moment?” The scent of roses trailed Amélie to the small side door.