Joanna Bourne: The Forbidden Rose

They crossed the Pont Neuf, walking side by side with Hawker far behind, keeping some careful watch upon all the streets. The water emanated cool. Profoundly black, it held the light of the bridge lanterns, rippling in the water. There were no stars, and it was the dark of the moon. Perhaps this meant misfortune for someone tonight. If so, she hoped it would be for their enemies.

“I have found your list for you,” she said. No one would overhear, on the bridge. “It is that you have been seeking up and down the countryside. The list that my father was so infinitely stupid to make.”

“Ah.” Guillaume slowed. “That list.”

“I have finally spoken to my father. He was one of the men who came to free you tonight, which should make you feel cordial toward him. He will find the list and give it to you. You are not kill him, do you understand? He had no idea what would be done with it.”

“I won’t hurt him.”

“Good. Cousin Victor is responsible for this stupidity. And Robespierre. Robespierre, you may hurt as much as you want.”

“I’m going to take you up on that.”

In the Marais, Guillaume thumped on a substantial door in a quiet, shuttered street. After a time, light came to the grille. The portal door was thrown back. They entered quickly. Hawker slipped in after them.

They made little noise, but as they walked in, two candles flickered into being on an upper floor and crossed the spaces of the windows. Light blossomed behind shutters on all sides. Then the ground floor lit.

The porter who had opened the door for them set his lantern on the stone bench and clasped Guillaume’s hand in both of his and pumped it hard. He murmured, “We were afraid for you” and “There seemed no way.”

It was a welcome home. This, then, was Guillaume’s.

The door across the courtyard opened to show a wide kitchen behind. A tall old woman with her white hair in long braids strode toward them, a peignoir of Chinese crimson silk, unbelted, sweeping behind.

“You’re safe.” A dumpling of a woman detoured around the gaunt old one and ran ahead to grab Guillaume’s shoulders and hug him firmly. She released him to look up and down his whole length.

The white-haired woman held up a candle. “Guillaume. Alive. At least relatively unharmed.” The candle shifted to the left. “And Marguerite de Fleurignac.” It was a statement, not a question. Steely eyes considered her, then traveled to Hawker. “And you.” The gaze returned to Guillaume and warmed, fractionally. “I was not optimistic. This once, I am glad to be proved wrong. Come inside, all of you. I need to know what’s going on.”

“Give me a minute to wash the prison off of me.” Guillaume unbuttoned his waistcoat and dropped it and his jacket on the bench as he passed. He headed for the square stone basin at the side of the courtyard. “Maggie, go ahead to the kitchen. Make them give you something hot to drink. Hawker, take the stairway straight behind you. One flight up and second door left. I have clean towels in my room. Bring some.”

Guillaume sent Hawker into the heart of the house to tell the disdainful old woman the boy was under his protection.

“Hawker.” Her voice stopped him. The dark head, sleek as a seal, went up. “Present me to Madame.”

His eyes locked with hers. He knew what she was doing. Every one of them understood. They all held conversations in glances and the twitch of an eyebrow.

“Of course.” Hawker slid into place between her and the old woman. Straight-backed, formal, mocking, he gave the smallest bow and spoke like a young Gascon nobleman. “Madame Cachard, permit me to present to you Mademoiselle Marguerite de Fleurignac. You will have heard of her father, perhaps, the former Marquis de—”

“My wife,” Guillaume interrupted. He’d pulled his shirt off over his head. He stood, half-naked, in the open air. “She’s not mademoiselle anything.” He stripped the shirt down off his arms and bunched it together and tossed it across the bench.

“Fine. You do the pretty. Don’t expect me to know what to call her.” Hawker stalked off through the courtyard, skirting pots of sprawling geraniums, headed for a door in the corner. “Let me know what name you’re using today.”

The door slammed behind him, which doubtless relieved his feelings. There was no one asleep in this house, in any case.

“You are married?” Madame Cachard did not sound approving.

If this woman disapproved of Guillaume’s marriage, she would have to deal with his wife. “We are.” Even without her fan—oh, but she was fluent with a fan—she needed only two words to tell another woman to keep her nose from beneath this particular basket lid.

Madame Cachard raised her eyebrows. Guillaume sat to pull his boots off. “Let’s delve into my private life later, Helen. I need to know what’s happening in Paris.”

“As do we all, after this grenade you’ve tossed into the middle of French politics. What the devil have you been about?” The old woman’s eyes rested on Guillaume and then on her. “You will also explain how you got out of prison. Wash, get dressed, and come inside.” She raised her voice. “You will all join me in the kitchen in a quarter hour, if you please. The world is rolling hotfoot to hell and I need reports. You won’t discover anything interesting in bed.”

A man’s laughter rolled out from above, and an answering chuckle and a murmur of talk. The old woman lifted her candle. “I shall spare my aging eyes the sight of Guillaume LeBreton in all his naked glory. Don’t cover those ribs till Thea sees them. She may decide bandages are called for.” She started to turn, then stopped. “You were right about the boy.”

“I told you so.”

“Give him to me.”

Guillaume pulled his boots off while he thought. “He’s yours. He needs to stay out of England for a few years.”

“We will allow him to menace the populations of Europe for a while. I will begin the process of civilizing him. It will be an arduous undertaking.” She swept off, upright and grand in her crimson robe.

Guillaume stood up, grinning. “Hawker’s in for an interesting time.”

“Madame Cachard as well, I think.”

“Oh yes.”

She came closer to him. For his disguises, Guillaume had built himself the callouses of a poor man, the brown neck and shoulders and chest, as if he worked on the land, bare-backed, under the sun. He could pass for a peasant or sailor and be completely convincing. She had watched him do it again and again in the short time she had known him. He shaped his lies even with his muscles and bones.

But the strength of him was real. She had read the textures and surfaces of his body. When she was lost in sensation and could think only of pleasure, her skin continued to discover him. At least some of what she had learned must be truth.

He unbuttoned his trousers.

“You cannot become naked here,” she said.

“There’s a screen over there. Blow that lantern out and come over here and we’ll both go be naked behind it. Nobody can see.”

Perhaps he was right. The light of the lantern barely touched him and the night was all around. He’d stripped his trousers down and stood in his caleçons , barefoot in the courtyard. Then he removed the last of his clothing. It seemed he could indeed wear nothing at all. He was matter-of-fact about his nakedness, as men are who spend their lives on board ship, or traveling, or in armies, where no privacy is possible.

He said, “I was hoping for a chance at you before the day starts. If you’re keeping your clothes on, I won’t get one, will I?” He hefted the bucket into the bottom of the deep stone basin and pumped water.

“I do not shed my clothing in the middle of a courtyard with everyone stirring and coming to breakfast. I am more modest than you. Frogs in a duck pond are more modest than you.”