Chapter 17
Seventeen
The safehouse was on the top floor of a three-story building.
It had a slanted roof, a single window, and three rooms. Two of the rooms were roughly the size of closets and contained little more than a mattress, a stool, and a table whose surface could barely contain a wash basin and a pitcher.
A slightly larger room furnished with a table and four mismatched chairs served as living room, kitchen and—when any members of the team were in town, a planning center.
But it was the secret compartment beneath the floorboards of one of the smaller rooms that was of greatest interest to Marcus at that moment. He sat on a little stool, considering the assortment of clothes, wigs, pistols, powder, shot, and knives contained within.
Under Suzanne’s critical eye, he dressed in buff-colored breeches, a waistcoat in a similar shade, and a red-striped jacket with wide lapels. He tucked his dark queue beneath a blond wig and topped it with a tricorne adorned with a tricolor rosette.
“That wig will be miserable in this heat, for sure, but better a sweaty head than no head at all,” she said, noticing him scratching at the edges of the hairpiece.
“Ever since the assembly ordered the arrest of the Girondins, the city’s been on edge.
Every old woman on a stoop, every young rowdy on the corner is hoping to be the hero who spots the enemies of the state and saves the nation. ”
She stooped, searching through the pile, then handed him a pair of spectacles.
They were a different shape than the ones he’d worn during the ride to the coast with the team—square frames instead of round.
“Put these on, too. With your height and those broad shoulders, you’re unlikely to go unnoticed.
But at least any description of you will mostly be wrong. ”
She rose and stepped back, nodding at the overall effect. “You look every inch a patriotic man of business. Except for that of course,” she nodded at the knife he was slipping into his boot.
After he’d slipped a second into his sleeve, Marcus thanked her, bade her farewell, and set off at a brisk pace for the Rue de Renard.
The streets were crowded, noisy, and ripe with the smells of the Parisians, their wares, and their refuse marinating in the summer sun.
He dodged a woman offering to sell him “ribbons for your good lady.”
The plan he’d described to Dinsmore: 1. Ride to Paris, 2. Find the comte’s daughter, 3. Bring her back to England, was admittedly vague, but he’d already accomplished the first part.
“Old clothes, old clothes, buy and sell old clothes,” a shopkeeper bellowed from a rickety stand piled high with a colorful jumble of fabrics.
Marcus knew the streets of Paris well. Not only because he’d committed étienne Turgot’s amazingly detailed 1734 map of the city to memory, but also because he’d spent countless hours wandering in and out of the bookstores and coffee houses around the Palais Royale, the scattered salons of various aristocratic friends and relatives, and the studios of the Louvre. Trying to get lost and failing.
“Latest edition of Marat’s Publicist of the Revolution, citizen?” A small boy clutching a pile of papers thrust a pamphlet at him. Marcus waved it away, turning down a winding street flanked on either side by tall buildings with arched doorways.
A stocky man in a gray suit bumped into him; in the same moment he registered the collision, Marcus felt the furtive dip of a hand into his coat pocket.
He grabbed the man’s wrist, spun him around and kicked him in the back of the knee. It all happened so quickly that only he and the pickpocket were aware that the ensuing spectacular fall wasn’t an accident.
Putting a finger to the bridge of his spectacles to make sure they were still in place, he glanced back to make sure the man wasn’t following him; the would-be thief rose unsteadily to his feet, covered in street muck, and limped off in the opposite direction.
Marcus patted his pocket as he strode on, feeling the outline of his sketchbook, the miniature, and his small silver pocket watch.
He passed the Rue de Petit Lion. He could feel sweat soaking into the crown of his wig and resisted the urge to scratch.
Another block and he turned onto the Rue de Renard.
It was seven meters wide, generous in a city where some streets were only one or two meters wide.
As he passed Number 11, a Gothic pile with an oculus window, he thought of his sketchbook, of the drawing of the fox he’d made with the number 17 concealed in the lines of its ears.
And there it was. Marguerite de Rouvroy’s home was a neat four-story affair, with balconies on the second floor flanked by two long windows. A carved set of double doors was set beneath a curved lintel.
Mentally preparing his story—he was a solicitor with questions about the property, he knocked. As he did so, he caught sight of an ‘X’ in white chalk, smeared, but still visible about a hand’s breath above where he set his fist.
He knocked again, then paused, listening for a response, a sound of movement inside, but heard nothing.
A prickle that wasn’t sweat crawled up the back of his neck.
Risking a glance over his shoulder, Marcus caught sight of an old man watching him from across the street with what seemed like far more than idle curiosity.
He knocked again. Louder. Glanced back and saw the man beckon to a street urchin—a courier for the neighborhood watch? He tried the door. It swung open.
“Good day, citizeness,” he said taking a step inside the entrance hall.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the urchin set off running.
“I’m here on business,” he said as if responding to an invitation. Porcelain shards crunched under his booted feet as he turned, closed the door and locked it.
With more hope than expectation, he ventured a soft, “Citizeness Rouvroy?”
Holding his breath, he listened carefully; the only sounds he heard were the ticking of a clock on one of the tables flanking the sweeping staircase and the muffled sounds of traffic from the street outside.
Marcus exhaled. He didn’t know who the urchin had been sent to warn, but he knew he’d have to work quickly.
Pulling out his pocket watch, he marked the time—he’d give himself twenty minutes—and surveyed the room.
Gilt framed mirrors were set over each of the tables to expand the space and reflect light from the chandelier hanging over the starburst-patterned parquet floor.
A pattern sparkling with powdery shards of porcelain.
He frowned at them. If the lady or one of her servants had dropped a piece of china, surely it would have been swept up by now?
But there was no sign of either.
He ran up the stairs.
“Merde,” was his first thought when he reached the top.
He’d been on enough raids to recognize the aftermath of one.
Papers were scattered across the paint-smeared parquet floor, an upended desk drawer atop them.
Splayed books were heaped beside an empty bookcase, its glass panels swung wide.
Canvases and portfolios leaned haphazardly against the wall behind a crooked row of easels.
Marcus inhaled sharply. He registered the familiar aromas of linseed oil and turpentine, but not, thankfully, of gunpowder. Or blood.
Had she been arrested? Or had she fled?
He conducted a quick inspection of the rest of the rooms, finding more drawers emptied and overturned.
As he searched under beds, behind curtains, and inside the larger armoires and trunks, he called softly, “Mme de Rouvroy? Citizeness Rouvroy?” He thought of the dark-eyed sprite in the miniature. “Marguerite?”
Marcus checked his watch—ten minutes had passed.
Returning to the sitting room, which he suspected had been the epicenter of whatever had happened, he began examining the scene more carefully, starting with the papers on the floor.
He found household accounts and correspondence with artists, studios, and salons, including the Louvre’s.
His gaze shifted to the paintings on the three easels.
Getting to his feet, he stepped around the discarded books, an empty leather artist’s tube, and inspected them more closely.
Based on the correspondence he’d skimmed, he guessed they were her proposed Louvre submissions.
The painting on the left was an allegorical work, Diana the Huntress Testing Her Bow.
In the center stood a portrait of a young woman with a sketch pad on her lap, the tools of an artist’s trade around her, an open window behind her.
And on the right loomed a portrait of an austere-looking older man in black, with a white neckcloth and a tricolor rosette on his lapel.
All three were signed M. Rouvroy in the lower right-hand corner.
He let out a low whistle. He’d seen works by women artists like Vigée le Brun, Labille-Guiard and Carriera, so he knew that there were women who could paint as well as men.
But still, they were rare. Madame de Rouvroy’s work was vibrant, confident… and audacious.
He knew he should check the time, finish his search, but his gaze was inexorably drawn to the portrait of the young woman. Marcus didn’t need to consult the miniature in his pocket to know that he was looking at Marguerite de Rouvroy.
Her hair was tied in a loose bun, a few renegade strands framing her oval face.
She had delicately winged eyebrows, impossibly large eyes, a nose that turned up slightly at the end, and a generous mouth.
In one hand she held a piece of charcoal; it hovered over the sketchpad in her lap, as she gazed out of the canvas, an expression of critical amusement in her eyes.
As if she were trying to decide whether he was worthy of her attention.
He tore his gaze free. It was just a painting. The restless buzzing of his nerves? Exquisite art was always exciting. And he’d been riding for three days. On an unplanned mission to rescue a woman who was clearly missing.
Marcus glanced at his pocket watch. Fifteen minutes gone.
He turned his attention to the portfolios propped against the wall. If she’d managed to flee, it would help to get a better sense of the woman he was trying to find. Who was Marguerite de Rouvroy?
He flipped quickly through them. One contained sketches of mythological scenes—all women, another of portraits—a mixture of women and self-satisfied looking men, a third of anatomical studies of hands, feet, and eyes.
Yet another held pastel drawings of a dark-haired man, his long hair unbound, his face vague, but the lines of his naked body sketched and smudged in sensuous, lingering detail.
The drawings were shocking. Improper. And yet…
what did it feel like to be the object of a woman’s openly admiring, sexual gaze?
Who was this faceless man?
Her husband? A lover?
Marcus slammed the portfolio shut. The lady’s erotic drawings were not his business. His business was to find her and bring her back to her father.
He turned to look at the books spread about the floor. He’d always thought perusing a person’s library was a bit like reading a diary. He scanned the titles: sketchbooks, novels, poetry, art criticism. A tattered brown volume was splayed against a table leg. Du Fresnoy’s De Arte Graphica.
He started, as if seeing an old friend with whom he’d had an unpleasant falling out.
He’d had a copy once, but he’d sold it to a Palais Royale bookseller.
He could recall the text, the exact page and placement of the author’s description of the artist’s power to “correct and amend the common Nature, and to represent it as it was first created without fault.”
Those lines still made him want to find the author, grab him by the collar and shake him. Nothing created by nature was without fault. To cover up those flaws, to pretend otherwise, was a lie.
Lies led to betrayal.
He remembered the clumsy verse he’d scrawled in response, half drunk, half mad with pain. On impulse, he opened the book. And there it was, in the margin, in his own handwriting, a nausea-inducing reminder of his youthful romantic stupidities.
There was a pounding at the front door. For a split second, trapped in the amber of the past, he took it for his heart. Snapping the book shut, he shot a look at the portrait of Marguerite, then at the leather artist’s tube he’d seen on the floor.
The pounding on the door grew louder. It was accompanied by a male voice impatiently demanding to know if “anyone was in there.”
Marcus stood very still, not frozen, but recalling the placement of the doors and windows, reviewing the details of the exterior of the house, the arrangement of drainpipes, ledges, and rooftops. Then he drew out the knife in his sleeve and listened, a plan taking shape in his head.
There was a rattling of the door. Whoever had been knocking was now testing whether it was locked.
He’d taken care to lock it, but did they have a key?
His eyes were drawn back to the portrait.
The thought of leaving it in this vandalized and abandoned apartment felt like leaving gemstones in dung.
Setting one hand on the frame, he held it still while he used his knife to slash the edges of the canvas.
As soon as it came free, he slipped the knife into his pocket and rolled it tightly.
“There’s no one there.” A voice said.
So they didn’t have a key.
“But the boy said the old man saw a blond man with glasses hanging about,” said another.
“He said hanging about. Not entering. Not breaking in. You can see the place is locked. Just put the seals on. That’ll let people know to stay out. Lazy bastards should have done it when they took the bitch away.”
Marcus heard more rattling, followed by a liquid slapping noise; men from the section’s Public Safety Committee plastering the doors with official seals. The seals that gave public notice the apartment’s residents had been arrested.
He had to get out of the house before he was sealed in.
Still, he thought he might have just enough time to save a few more pieces of the lady’s art.
Setting the canvas down, he pulled his knife back out and proceeded to free the remaining canvases.
Then rolling them together, he snatched up the artist’s carrying tube, flipped open the leather cap and slid them inside
Grasping the strap on the side of the tube, he slung it over his shoulder, and sprinted in the direction of a narrow doorway, his foot striking the discarded copy of De Arte Graphica and sending it spinning.
Any hope that Marguerite de Rouvroy had somehow managed to flee before the raid was dead and gone.
He needed to find the lady before she was, too.