Chapter 40
Forty
After what seemed like hours, but even without his pocket watch, he knew was more like twenty minutes, Marcus found himself standing in a pool of lantern light outside the prison’s walls. He allowed himself a sigh of relief, before looking around.
To his right, there were three guards leaning against the wall, smoking and talking; none slim enough to be Marguerite.
To his left, two middle-aged men were engaged in a heated argument, hands waving and fingers pointing.
Across the street, a cart filled with baskets full of chickens rolled past revealing a wall, the Seine, and beyond it, the rooflines and candlelit windows of the buildings on the other side of the river.
He turned left, strode down the block, eyes raking the street, the doorways, anywhere she might be lingering. He spotted a woman seated on a stoop, head resting on the door frame—but she was too old, too ragged to be Marguerite.
He turned right, walking faster now, searching more intently. It had been foolish to think she’d wait. In his experience, women never did—not Alice, not his mother, or his sister. Their reasons might have been different, but the pain was the same. The pain that was rising now...
No. Marcus slammed shut the drawers in his chest; now was not the time to poke at old wounds. He had a mission to complete.
Where the hell had Marguerite gone?
He couldn’t keep pacing back and forth in front of the prison. Mustn’t stand there like a discarded lover.
Think, think, think, Tyndale! What would you do in her shoes?
Wait, by God.
He exhaled slowly. Marguerite de Rouvroy must be desperate to put as much distance between herself and the prison as possible. Of course she wouldn’t stop, she’d keep walking.
But in which direction?
He combed his mind for what he knew about her, shoving aside the memory of mocking eyes, soft lips, and delicately arched brows.
He thought of her paintings, instead; of bold Diana testing the strength of her bow, her self-portrait challenging the gaze of the viewer.
She might be frightened, but she, like her art, was clever and audacious.
He thought of her portfolio of erotic drawings, all of the same man. Was he her lover? Was that where she’d gone?
Marcus frowned. If so, why hadn’t the bastard come forward at the trial or visited her in prison?
Surely, after everything she’d been through, she wouldn’t put her trust in such as he?
Marcus shook his head. If she hadn’t run to her lover, she probably also hadn’t run back to her apartments in the Marais. She had to know they wouldn’t be safe.
He turned in the direction of the prosecutor’s apartments, gambling that she’d start off by keeping up the pretense of obeying his orders. He knew the address—it was his business to know such things—even without Fouquier-Tinville’s instructions.
He walked quickly, scanning the dark windows of shuttered shops, the stoops, and mouths of alleys.
No sign of Marguerite.
But he did spot David, seated on the box of the coach, driving the team slowly down the street.
Plucking a red handkerchief from his coat pocket, he made a show of wiping his brow with it.
David nodded, registering the signal and steered the team to a spot just ahead of Marcus. Drawing to a halt, he swung down from the box and, began walking alongside the horses, as if checking for a problem with the straps of the harness.
Marcus stepped up beside him. “Is there a problem citizen? Perhaps I can help.”
A window shade in the carriage rose, not enough for passersby to see in, but enough for Andre to join their conversation.
“Where is she?” David’s voice was low, but full of the same urgency Marcus was struggling to contain. “Why are you alone? Did something go wrong?”
“She’s out. But she managed it on her own. And I don’t know where she is now.”
“She escaped,” David said in amazement, “and you lost her?”
“I didn’t lose her,” Marcus asserted, his face flushing. “I’m just not entirely certain where she’s gone.”
“Sounds like the definition of lost,” Andre’s voice floated down from the coach window.
David turned to look at Marcus, his brows raised almost to the brim of his red liberty cap.
“I’m fairly certain that she’s headed in this direction and that she’ll be walking slowly…” he said, defensively.
“Do you want to ride with us, or do you want us to follow?”
“It’ll be faster if I ride with you. I’ll get out the moment I catch sight of her.”
The door swung open and a curious rope and wood device dropped down. It looked much like a stirrup.
“My latest invention for quick entries,” David said, “Just put your foot in it.”
Andre leaned out of the carriage, one hand extended. “Come on.”
Marcus grabbed his hand, ignoring the sting of his sliced palm, put his foot in the stirrup and swung easily inside.
He hesitated before closing the door. “Head that way, towards Fouquier-Tinville’s apartments,” he instructed David.
“Andre and I will keep watch on both sides of the street, but if you catch sight of her, knock three times on the roof and slow down.”
“What happened?” Andre demanded, even before Marcus was seated and the coach began to roll forward.
Adjusting the canvas shade covering the window so he could get a better view of the street, Marcus explained about the delay with Laurent and Fouquier-Tinville’s discovery of Marguerite dressed as a soldier in her cell.
“And she kept her wits about her the whole time.” Andre whistled, eyes fixed on the street from his side of the coach. “Remarkable. Any one of my hen-witted sisters would have swooned on the spot.”
Marcus had met all five of Andre’s sisters and suspected he was exaggerating about at least three of them. “She came up with a fake name and an excuse for being in the cell without a moment’s hesitation.”
“Perhaps we ought to recruit her.”
“We’ll have to find her first.” Marcus scowled out the window. “Why are there so many people out on the street at this hour? Don’t they have anything better to do?”
“I do believe I’ve lived to see Marcus perturbed,” Andre mused. Then his tone became serious. “Were either of you followed?”
“No.” That was at least one thing working in their favor.
Marcus craned his neck, straining to see if a slender man standing in the shadows by a shuttered apothecary’s was Marguerite.
“If none of her cell mates sounds an alarm, I’m guessing we have several hours before they conduct the morning roll call and realize she’s missing. ”
“Are you thinking door-to-door searches?”
As the carriage rolled closer, he could see the man by the apothecary’s was wearing a dark suit, not a uniform.
He expelled a frustrated breath. “I’m thinking that our newly appointed chief prosecutor won’t want to make a big fuss over an investigation that’s likely to reveal his own role in the escape of a prisoner. ”
“I can only imagine the headlines and the cartoons. Perhaps we ought to ask Madame de Rouvroy to try her hand at one.”
If they found her. Marcus gritted his teeth.
No. When they found her. Where the hell was she?
“He’ll try and make light of it. Make some excuse that he planned to let her go anyway.
Still,” he worried, more to himself than to Andre.
“Between her escape, the Rouen rumors, and the ongoing search for fugitive Girondins, security is likely to be even tighter at the city gates. Have you and David determined the best one to use?”
“Still working on it.” Clearly anticipating Marcus’s response, he added, “I know, I know, we only have a week and a half left. But getting that uniform and David’s latest changes to the coach took…” his voice trailed off. “Wait…”
“Do you see her?” Marcus whirled around, straining to see out the window, beyond Andre’s mop of curls.
“No.” Andre shook his head, “Apologies. I thought…”
Marcus turned back to his window. He glanced back down the street, in case he might have missed her, then fixed his gaze forward. He scanned every passerby, trying to pick out faces and shapes with only the light of the occasional street lantern and candle-lit windows to aid him.
“Damned blue uniforms,” he muttered. “Couldn’t the bloody guard have chosen something that shows up better in the dark?” What if he’d misjudged her? What if she had tried to go back to the Marais? To her lover? Had run into trouble?
“Things are definitely getting more tense here,” Andre said. “Fights breaking out on the streets. I’m thinking perhaps we should take Suzanne with us when we go.”
“I’ve asked her.”
“I have, too,” Andre confessed.
“She turned me down flat.”
“Me, as well.”
“She doesn’t speak English and hears we boil all our food. Says she’d rather die than live without decent spices.”
“She told me the same thing.”
“Wait,” Andre’s voice rose in hopeful excitement and Marcus’s heart followed suit. “I think—” Then it fell. “No.”
“If things do take a turn for the worse, I’ve found a really secure place to hide out.” he continued.
“Don’t say that word,” Marcus growled.
“What word?”
“The one that rhymes with curse.” He thought of how Dinsmore had asked if this rescue was a penance. It was beginning to feel that way.
“There’s just one problem.”
He resisted the urge to ask, only one?
Three sharp thumps on the roof interrupted their conversation.
Marcus heard them at the same moment he caught sight of the slender guardsman, bicorne pulled low, stopping on the street corner, waiting for their coach to pass.
His heart leapt, even as his body tensed to do the same. He reached for the door latch.
“Why don’t we pull up and invite her in?” Andre protested.
In response, Marcus swung open the door of the still moving coach and leapt out.
Eyes like a diving falcon fixed on the slight figure, he began running the moment his feet hit the ground.
Stretching out an arm, he caught the figure around the waist, crushing the light body to his chest. The bicorne tumbled to the ground, revealing the stunned and graphite smeared face of Marguerite de Rouvroy.
With a furious rush of frustration and relief, Marcus swept her up into his arms.