Chapter 16
Isobel was grateful afterwards—much later, when she could think clearly again—not to have found out just how much further events might have progressed.
Despite the danger and everything at stake, Nathaniel had been the only real, true thing in the room.
And the charade that wasn’t, quite, became more urgently felt than Dubois and his spies.
Her pulse, already elevated, pounded in her temples at a light knock on the door. Dizziness gripped her—who was beyond the room?
Nathaniel stilled, shoulders rigid: the cost of his self-discipline. “Qui est là?” he called brusquely.
“Mille pardons, Monsieur, Mademoiselle. I will go away if you wish.” A feminine voice, speaking French.
“Non.” He trailed a hand down Isobel’s face to her shoulder and on down to her hip before pushing himself back from the chest of drawers.
“I will open the door.” He kissed her lingeringly, using the act to murmur, “Chrysanthème.” He turned away, hitching his unfastened trousers just high enough they didn’t slip off his hips.
If anyone watched and had not yet been convinced, they could little doubt the authenticity of his arousal on full display. With effort, she averted her eyes.
For God’s sake, what kind of sister am I? Thérèse . . . Lucy . . . Her entire reason for having come to Paris, the objective—the only one—that had driven her life recently. She’d lost the thread of that just now, however briefly. Atop the chest of drawers, animal instincts prevailed.
If he’d let his control slip, I wouldn’t have stopped him.
His partially nude nonchalance was more than she could match without him there to steady her.
She adjusted her skirts enough to satisfy some degree of modesty, hoping the trembling of her limbs was not visible, forcing herself to sprawl, loose-limbed and languid, against the chiffonier’s backboard like a woman who’d just been in the process of being .
. . fucked, to use Nathaniel’s language. Or Beaumont’s.
Chrysanthème was perhaps a few years older than herself, lithe and strikingly lovely, with fiery copper-gold hair. She exchanged a few words in a low voice with Nathaniel before he beckoned Isobel over.
“The room is no longer watched.” He was quickly setting his attire to rights. “Chrysanthème does not know for how much longer.”
It was their opportunity to leave, then.
But they had been observed. Her breath came short, as it sometimes did before it got away from her.
Not here. She would examine her feelings about that later, safely away from here, and if she had an attack of nerves there, so be it.
It can’t be here. She sucked in a harsh breath. Not here.
Chrysanthème touched her wrist briefly, breaking the rising panic. “Your gloves, Mlle Blanchet,” she murmured, handing them over before leading them from the room.
Nathaniel walked a half step behind her, one hand splayed on the small of her back and the other on her shoulder, never breaking contact. She focused on those points of connection and managed, barely, to keep her breath even.
He drew her fully against his body, banding an arm beneath her bosom, as they waited in the entry drawing room for their cloaks.
To Chrysanthème he said, “If you would be so kind as to inform M. Dubois that we have enjoyed this first visit together, I would be obliged. We found it to our satisfaction, did we not, chérie?”
She produced a smile. “Very much, mon amour.”
“It will be my pleasure.” Chrysanthème dropped a slight curtsy. “He will be most glad to hear it.”
“Please also relay that I will return tomorrow as discussed.” Nathaniel arranged her pelisse over her shoulders.
“Oui, Monsieur.”
“Thank you,” she managed, looking at Chrysanthème.
“Bien s?r.” In better light, Chrysanthème’s eyes were an almost crystalline green. “I will see you here as well, with M. Beaumont?” Her gaze travelled between them.
“Yes.” She tried not to think of that moment of intense fear, walking into the salle écarlate. She still trembled, although not so badly as she had. Nathaniel wrapped her pelisse more firmly around her shoulders.
“Bonne nuit, Monsieur, Mademoiselle.” Chrysanthème motioned with her hands for the outer door to be unlocked.
Outside, the wind was raw, hinting at winter not far off. Too early in the year for it, but it had been a strange year of ill cold and wet weather. Just now it was bracing, when her thoughts tried to pull her under.
There was a fiacre stand just down the street with a driver half asleep and huddled deep into his coat. He sat up at attention as they approached. Nathaniel gave him instructions in a low tone and helped her ascend the step. They sat across from one another.
She closed her eyes briefly and rested her head against the back of the bench. “Thérèse.” She spoke low to ensure the driver wouldn’t overhear. “That is the name of the woman who may be my sister.”
Nathaniel’s hand touched the back of her own lightly and then was gone. “Aye.”
“And she may be there tomorrow night. With this Baron Cuvelier. I must—” She bit down on her lip, unsure what she’d meant to say. “Do you know him? Or know of him?”
Nathaniel shook his head. “Amélie almost certainly will. If she for some reason does not, she will be able to find out. I will ask her tomorrow, first thing. Baudelaire as well.”
There seemed nothing else to say. Or rather, far too much to say but nothing specific she could verbalize, not with the questions flooding her mind. At least her breathing had settled.
Was Lucy Thérèse? Would she see her tomorrow after having nearly given up all hope? How might she get Lucy away from Cuvelier and Dubois and Compton? Or would Lucy even want to come? What might she have endured—might still be enduring, at their hands?
What was the source of Dubois’s mistrust? Was it directed at her or at Nathaniel? What might it mean for them?
And then there was what had transpired in the salle écarlate . . . That, she did not wish to think about for multiple reasons.
Her thoughts refused to settle. She was on the verge of flying into pieces, of crawling out of her skin.
Once, as the fiacre passed an area where the bitter wind had not extinguished the hanging oil lamps, she could just make out that Nathaniel’s eyes were on her.
When the fiacre set them down, the wind had picked up enough that she was immediately cold through. She and Nathaniel did not speak until they had gained his rooms—Beaumont’s rooms—although he again set his hand at the small of her back.
Once inside, door locked and a single lamp lit, Nathaniel propped himself against the table and waited, eyes on her. As usual, his face contained nothing whatsoever of his thoughts. Although . . . were his eyes softer than usual?
“I sometimes cannot breathe properly,” she said, although that was so far down the list of what mattered at the moment it was nearly inane. “It nearly happened earlier. The episodes . . . I can’t prevent them.”
His eyes were softer. “You managed quite well, all things considered. It was not a good situation.”
She paced, trying to order her agitated mind. “The reference to our eyes. I must believe this Thérèse is Lucy. And yet now that I may have at last found her, I do not know what, exactly, to feel. For it may have endangered us both, just as M. Baudelaire suggested it might.”
“It was a calculated risk, aye. We knew that.”
“A risk to all of us,” she whispered. “Not only to me or to you, but now Lucy as well. If she was not already in danger. Which certainly she was—is—if she is in company with these men. Willingly or otherwise.”
“Aye.” He regarded her steadily. “I will do all in my power to keep you safe, but these are not men to be trifled with. Think carefully about whether you wish to return to Le Repaire. After tonight, I cannot predict what might be required of us.”
Required of them . . . She shut that thought down. “But you will go regardless.” It was imperative for his work, for all that Dubois had couched it as an invitation. Nathaniel must go or risk all he’d gained to date. And he would face that danger entirely alone, did she not go.
But what help could she be to him if matters went badly?
She was not one of his trained agents. She could hardly hide Jamie’s pistol in any sort of dress she might wear to Le Repaire, even supposing she could bring herself to use it if the moment came.
She’d brought knives with her to France with some thought to defending herself if need be, but she was certain now she hadn’t the courage to pull them if a situation demanded it.
Perhaps in utter desperation, but nothing short of that.
It was one matter in London, abstractly pondering eventualities that in truth had felt far-fetched.
It was different now, having been inside Le Repaire, having come face-to-face with danger with her courage tested.
It had been all she could manage, not giving herself away as something other than what she was pretending to be.
She paced to stand by the window. A breath of cold air whispered past a patch of indifferent glazing. She traced the edge of the glass, seeking the source of the leak, as she ordered her thoughts.
“I must return there,” she said finally.
“If Thérèse is Lucy, I—we—have found her. Danger to myself, what is that beside . . .?” She swallowed.
“I must believe it is her,” she said again.
“I must see for myself if it’s her. And if it’s her, how she does.
You might recognize her from the miniature, but I know her. Or . . . did.”
She clenched her fists, nails digging into her palms. The pain sharpened her mind.
“If she is Thérèse, it means she is not in a brothel somewhere, that at least Compton did not bring her to Paris for that purpose. That was one of my greatest fears, although I tried not to dwell on it. And I must hope that even if she is not with this Alphonse Cuvelier by choice, that it is a better situation for her than some of the alternatives I feared. Perhaps he is kind to her—or at least is not cruel? Is that foolish of me? Is there any chance at all it is even the truth?”
Nothing outside was visible in the dark, and the outside chill was working its way beneath her skin. Or perhaps she was just cold inside already. Still cold. Always cold, for months now.
She turned to face Nathaniel.
His arms were crossed lightly over his chest, but his frame was not relaxed in any other way. “It is not foolish to hope.” His voice had become so very soft, even though his face was not, other than his eyes.
He did not say that it was realistic.
She leaned back against the sash, her mind latching on to the next disjointed thought that tumbled through, a welcome distraction from fear for Lucy.
“M. Dubois said the salle écarlate had the same attractions as the salle céladon you requested. What was in those drawers?” He’d opened them, lifting several items she’d only glimpsed before he replaced them.
“Do you want the truth? It might be better, not.”
She couldn’t look at him. “And then again, my own imaginings may paint it worse than it is.”
He took his time answering her. “Restraints. A riding crop. A specialized whip. I did not catalogue the contents beyond that. They were of no use to me.”
She sagged against the windowsill, unable to meet his eyes.
She’d thought herself not entirely na?ve, having been married and enjoying intimacy with Jamie for considerably more than the marital act alone.
Nathaniel had warned her somewhat obliquely ahead of time about Le Repaire, but oh, the many things she truly did not know.
“I had to look.” His voice was curt. “For the benefit of any eyes on us. But I had no thought of using anything in that drawer on you, no matter who was spying upon us.”
She pushed away consideration of what, even, that meant—using them on her.
“You did warn me. You were reluctant to put me in the position of going inside, even aside from the threat posed by Dubois. You cautioned me about what I might see. Amélie did as well. I entered Le Repaire willingly. I trusted you, knowing it was not misplaced.” She tried for a smile.
“You were correct in predicting that it was beyond anything I’d previously experienced.
Envisioned, even. And yes, some of it was truly shocking to me, despite your warning and Amélie’s.
” Her faint laugh was little more than breath.
“Although the china was rather diverting once I caught on to the theme.”
Items in the drawer notwithstanding and necessary pretense aside, there was no mistaking that Nathaniel’s desire in that room had been real, no matter what portion was also for show. And hers too, less obviously so but no less genuine.
She would throw herself into the breach and ask for what she wanted. “In the salle écarlate, what passed between us was not entirely counterfeit. Yes?”
The lamp guttered slightly as the wind howled its fury outside; a draft of air must have caught the flame despite its glass.
“What do you want?” Nathaniel’s voice was pure gravel again. He’d asked her the same question before Frascati’s, just before the mirror.
As then, the answer was the same. Had she courage to say it aloud this time?
“Tonight,” he clarified when she did not immediately answer. “Here, now. Away from Le Repaire.”
Surely his eyes could set her afire. It took effort to fill her lungs with sufficient air, to find the next words.
“That’s the crux of it. I do not want to think any longer about what took place at Le Repaire.
” Any of it—what she’d seen, what she’d learned, even what had occurred in that scarlet room.
“I want to stop thinking of Le Repaire altogether. I want something without artifice.”