The English Heiress (Heiress, Book One) Read online

  “If it is a present to the child, how will you explain taking it out again?” Chaumette asked.

  “Many call me ignorant because I cannot read or write,” Simon snarled, “but I am no fool for all of that. I must not seem to take anything that is not mine. Look here.” He pointed to a large wicker basket. “That will be filled with my clothes and my wife’s, but there is room under the bottom for the boy, and it will not be dark or stuffy in there because it is wicker. After I have shown Louis-Charles to the commissioners, I will take him back to his chamber. Then I will say goodbye to him while my wife puts the other child in the bed. She will come back, say the boy is in bed, and stand by the door, blocking the view of the guard and urging me to put in the clothes and go. It can be done in a minute. We will wheel out the basket, carry it downstairs—”

  “Is your wife strong enough?” Chaumette asked anxiously.

  “Love gives strength,” Simon answered. “She will be strong enough.”

  Chaumette accepted that because there was no choice. He hoped the device would work. If it did not, it would be far more difficult to spirit the child away another time. However, he had little fear for his own safety. If Simon were caught, he might try to involve Chaumette, but he had his defense all prepared. He would accuse Simon of trying to drag him in out of spite. Witnesses were ready to testify that Simon had begged Chaumette to allow him to retain his post as the boy Capet’s keeper, which was true, and that Chaumette had refused—which was also true, but the witnesses did not know of the substitute Chaumette had offered. It was he who had insisted that Simon display the boy to the commissioners on guard before he left the Temple for the last time.

  When he had taken his leave of Simon, Chaumette’s long day was not yet ended. He went to a quiet café, not known to be a haunt of his, to meet certain gentlemen with whom an ardent revolutionary would not be expected to consort. Thus, when Colurel was relieved by the man who kept the night watch, he did not find Chaumette either at his office or at his home. Colurel was more tired than usual, for he had done a good deal of worrying about what he had seen and what it meant, and was in a foul humor by the time he trudged back to Chaumette’s office to leave a message. Even then he could not fully unburden himself, because all the men he knew to be trustworthy were gone and he had been told not to mention the gunsmith if he could avoid it. All Colurel could do was growl at the man in the office that he had something to tell Chaumette and then go home to bed with the fear that he would be blamed for what was none of his fault.

  Roger was in no better a humor than his shadow. He had returned from marketing to find Pierre gone, as planned. When he brought his answer to Leonie out to Garnier, he had seen the smuggler drinking at the counter of the café where Garnier spent his time watching Roger’s front door. After that his day had been a nightmare. His work could not hold his mind, which had been filled with anxieties and regrets, all if I had only…and if only I had not…drifting from one horrible situation to another. First he imagined that Pierre would be caught, imprisoned, and executed. Then he became convinced that Chaumette would discover his attempt to rescue Leonie and have her killed.

  Although dark came early on January thirteenth, Roger was nearly mad by the time he heard Pierre tapping on the trapdoor in the roof. A leaping flash of relief passed back into fear as soon as Roger saw the expression on his friend’s face.

  “Sorry,” Pierre said grimly, “not only did I lose the man Garnier gave the letter to, but I was seen coming out of here.”

  “By whom?” Roger asked, white-faced.

  “The fishmonger. We must have come out the doors at almost the same instant. He didn’t actually see me come out, but suddenly there we were, looking at each other.”

  “Oh God,” Roger groaned, “and he knew you were not in the street before, because he had just been out. We exchanged greetings.”

  “Now, don’t lose your head,” Pierre urged. “That won’t accomplish anything at all. We will just have to go about this in a different way. Later tonight I will go down to my ship and get my men. Then, just before dawn, we will pay a little visit to Chaumette. I will soon enough find out where Mademoiselle de Conyers is and—”

  “Good!” Roger gasped. “Yes, of course. We will pay Chaumette a visit. Why the devil didn’t I think of that last night? In fact, why wait. Let’s go now.”

  “Don’t be a fool. Go where? Do you think these men who work plots seek their beds at seven of the clock in the evening? And there is the little problem of wringing the direction of his home out of the men who are watching you without rousing the entire neighborhood. We must wait until after midnight, and I am not sure you should…”

  Pierre’s voice faded as Roger turned his head and looked at him. There was no sense in arguing, Pierre knew. Roger could not be talked out of going along, and actually, he might as well. Once the watchdogs were pulled in and questioned, Roger would be safer prowling the streets and raiding Chaumette’s home than sitting still in his own house. On second thought, he did not even want to suggest that Roger—who was known and might be a danger to them all—stay in hiding. He could not dim the light that was now leaping in Roger’s blue eyes. The glaze of hopelessness had left them, and Pierre realized that most of his friend’s trouble had been the need to wait passively, helplessly, for things to happen.

  The conclusion was quite correct. Now that Roger knew he would be able to do something, a tremendous weight seemed to fall off him. The terror and depression that had been muddling his brain lifted away. All at once he was able to think and plan.

  “Our worst problem, after we get off the roof, will be the patrols in the street,” Roger remarked thoughtfully.

  “We will be careful,” Pierre replied. “It is not the first time I have dodged patrols.”

  “In a city?” Roger asked, but his voice was absent.

  Something was teasing his mind, something connected with danger and the commissioners of the commune, but not something recent. It was something to do with Leonie too, something very pleasant. But what the devil connection did Leonie have with the commissioners that could be pleasant? Pierre had begun to protest that a city was not so different from the countryside, but Roger signaled at him brusquely to be silent. Yet what Pierre said was also tied in with that elusive memory—something to do with getting past patrols in the street. Suddenly Roger smacked a fist into his palm.

  “I have it!” he cried. “But where did she hide them?”

  Naturally enough, Pierre looked at him as if he had gone crazy, but Roger did not stop to explain that he had remembered Toulon bringing two commissioners’ scarves to the house when he had plotted the escape of the entire royal family. Leonie had taken the scarves and hidden them. The men’s suits were still hanging among Roger’s clothes in the closet. He began to rummage there but stopped, remembering that Leonie had disposed of the scarves first, before she had run upstairs, and before they had quarreled because Leonie thought he was trying to get rid of her to make room for another woman. Roger laughed aloud. That was why the commissioners were connected with something pleasant in his mind. Then he flushed slightly. The lovemaking that had followed their quarrel had been something more than just “pleasant”.

  “Roger, what’s wrong with you?” Pierre asked sharply.

  Roger laughed again at the troubled look on the smuggler’s face. “I haven’t run mad,” he assured his friend, and explained his thought processes.

  “Marvelous!” Pierre exclaimed. “If we have those scarves, we can walk all over town with my men tagging openly at our heels and no one will question us.” Then his face clouded. “But she would have disposed of them, no? It would be dangerous to have such things, and women are fearful creatures.”

  “Not Leonie,” Roger said, “and I think she would have spoken to me about it before she threw them—oh, by God, I remember! That’s just what she did.”

  “Too bad,” Pierre comforted, thinking it was just like a woman always to do the wrong thing. �
�Well, we will manage without—”

  “No, no,” Roger interrupted. “That was how Leonie, I mean, Mademoiselle de Conyers, hid them. She put them down at the bottom of the bag of cleaning rags. They must still be there.”

  Both men nearly jostled each other getting down the attic ladder until Pierre drew back, realizing he didn’t know where Leonie—he smiled inadvertently. Roger was certainly doing his best to imitate that fabulous bird that hid its head in the sand when danger threatened, thinking if it could not see, then no one else could see it. Where then, did Mademoiselle de Conyers keep her rags? Fortunately, it seemed Roger knew. By the time Pierre got down the stairs, Roger had the scarves out and was waving them triumphantly.

  “Now all we need is a story in case we meet a patrol that knows we don’t belong in their Section,” Roger said.

  Pierre looked at his fever-bright eyes and then at the untouched food lying on the kitchen table. Obviously Roger had forgotten to eat again. For that matter, he was hungry himself. He eyed the ill-assorted purchases and sighed. It was also obvious that Roger had no idea how or with what to make a meal.

  “You think of a story,” he said. “I’m hungry. I’m going to try to prepare some sort of a supper that won’t poison us out of this crazy stuff you bought.”

  Roger examined the wilted greens and drying meat on the table with mild surprise. “Leon—Mademoiselle de Conyers attended to the food. I didn’t know what to buy and—and I wasn’t really thinking about it either, but… You know, Pierre, you’re right. I’m starved.”

  He watched Pierre for a few minutes but then became restless and began to fidget. After another minutes he said, “I think I’ll get everything I want to take with me. I won’t be coming back here ever again, no matter what happens.”

  Fifi was also starved. She was very cold and very tired, too. All day she had run up one street and down another, sniffing and looking and listening for anything familiar. She was too footsore, too frozen, too frightened now to think of the game of finding Roger. All she wanted to find was a way home—any home. Even the dreadful months alone in the château, stealing garbage from pig sties and killing mice and eating dead birds was better than wandering like this. There she had at least known where she was.

  The failing light did not trouble her much, but a fine drizzle that wet her coat and made her even colder, had begun to fall. Wearily she plodded on, her silken tail draggled with mud and filth tight against her rump in her abject misery. If it had not been so wet, if she could have found a dry hole to crawl into, she would have given up. Still, she sniffed hopefully and at last she was rewarded. She did not smell home or the god or the goddess, not so great a joy as that, but she did smell food.

  She turned into an alleyway, her pace increasing, the tip of her tail beginning to curl hopefully. The odor intensified, Fifi’s nose twitched and wiggled. There was a warmth mingled with the food odor too. There! Fifi hurried to a pile of offal near the back door of the food shop. Eagerly she snatched a mouthful, then another. There was noise, which made her nervous, but it was dim and dull, separated from her by walls and a door. There was a bone with fat and gristle, but it was too large for Fifi to drag away. Still, it was so delicious that Fifi’s caution diminished as she wrestled with it. Suddenly the sound intensified and simultaneously a woman shrieked and a glittering object flew at her, barely missing her.

  Terrified, she leaped away, tiredness forgotten as she ran with all her might to escape the clattering threat. In her fear she did not stop but ran headlong into a wide avenue at the end of the alley. All day Fifi had turned away from such streets, knowing that “home” was not on such thoroughfares and that she was not allowed to go on them unless accompanied by the goddess or the god. Startled by the openness, Fifi hesitated and turned to run back; but fear seized her and she began to tremble, hearing in memory the shriek and terrible clatter. Fearfully she turned into the wide street, slinking along as close to the buildings as she could get.

  Terror and guilt notwithstanding, Fifi’s nose continued to work. Suddenly she stopped and lifted her head, her tail came up and began to wave slowly. Vaguely she remembered that she had been frightened, but now she could not remember why. What a long walk she had had! The goddess would be very angry. She must hurry home as fast as possible. Perhaps the goddess would not know that she had come, all alone, to that place that smelled of leather and ink where the god talked to “friend” Fouché, who fed her bonbons.

  Fifi ran her best, but she was wet and cold and tired. It grew darker and colder. Then memory of warmth and comfort and food applied a spur, and she ran again. There was a steady encouragement for her too. As she ran along the broad rue de Rivoli, turned left into the rue du Temple, the way grew more and more familiar. It was very dark now. There was no moon, and Fifi could barely see the way at all. However, she really did not need to see now. All the scents were familiar. She had run these streets often at the heels of the goddess.

  At last she uttered a happy little bark. There was the sweet stink of bad fish. Next, only a few steps farther, was home. Her tail high and waving madly, Fifi jumped the step and scratched at the door. She stood waiting impatiently for a while, then scratched again. Sometimes the god and goddess were slow about opening the door for her. Still no answer. Fifi barked once or twice and scratched again, but the door remained closed. Her tail drooped a little. She was very, very tired. One more halfhearted scratch, and she lay down on the step. She was still cold and wet and hungry, but this was home. Soon someone would come.

  Leonie’s day had been no better than Roger’s or Fifi’s. Danou had pushed her, none too gently, up the stairs and just as she had reached the door she had heard Panel shout, “There she is.” And then command Fifi to return to him. Leonie did not think Fifi would obey Panel, but she might accept the invitation of the open door hoping to get back to her mistress. Even if she ran, she was such a small creature that it was not impossible that Panel could outrun her or corner her somewhere. Before she could hear any more, Leonie was thrust into her room and the door was locked.

  Since then Leonie had had nothing to do but regret her own idiocy. Why, oh why, had she wanted to drag Roger into this? Her plan to dispose of the men did not need his cooperation. She could have made a rough cloak from a blanket and asked for the Salle de Ménage—that was not near her present home, but she knew well how to get home from there. Why had she sent poor Fifi out to her death? It was her own weakness, Leonie knew. Danou and Panel deserved to die, but Leonie shrank from killing coldly and deliberately, perhaps needing to shoot a second time to finish a wounded man and later needing to handle the dead bodies. She shuddered and began to sob. She could have forced herself to it, but she wanted Roger, wanted to know he was coming, that he would approve of her, comfort her. That was why she had murdered poor faithful little Fifi.

  Tears dried in fury at herself, Leonie paced the room, her eyes as golden as her namesake. “Coward,” she hissed at herself, “did you not learn in those horrible months in Saulieu to depend on yourself?”

  Now, the bitter thought continued, you have ruined everything. Even if by some miracle Fifi should survive and find her way home, what could Roger do? He would never dream the little bitch could lead him back—even Leonie was not sure now that she was clever enough for that. Leonie began to cry again. All she would have accomplished was to increase Roger’s misery, and for that she had probably ruined her own chances of escape. The men would never trust her. They would never come alone to her door. She would never be able to convince them that she no longer cared about Fifi and would be passive prisoner.

  She cried herself to sleep and woke, hungry and desperate, to find that Roger’s letter had been pushed under the door. Reading it made her cry all over again. Hopelessness and fear breathed trough every line, although the words were all of comfort, all urging her not to worry, not to be afraid. Everything would come out right. This period of trial would soon be over and they would be together again. A complete giveawa
y of Roger’s dreadful mental condition was that he had not even asked the “significant question”, the answer to which was supposed to identify her.

  Again rage and tears racked her alternately, now and then made more intense by a little hope. At last, after many hours had passed, the hope died and Leonie acknowledged that the miracle she had longed for had not happened. Roger had not come. Therefore, Fifi was either dead already or as good as dead. Leonie rose from the bed on which she had been lying, resolved that she would save herself. Then she realized she was shaking with weakness. Nonetheless, she gritted her teeth and drew one pistol, then went to the door and knocked firmly. Quite soon Panel’s voice answered, asking what she wanted. Leonie swallowed hard.

  “Whatever you think I did or did not do,” she cried, “I am sure Citizen Chaumette would not like it if I was starved. I am hungry. Either let me cook or bring me food.”

  “It is there,” Panel shouted back, “on the dresser.”

  Leonie bit her lip hard. Now what was she to do? She went over and looked. The food was ice-cold and the coarsest fare the nearest cafetier provided. Leonie called complaints through the door, but there was no answer this time. She was about to start pounding on the door, when she realized it would be better to eat first and regain some strength. She knew there were no writing materials in the room. They would have to bring paper and pen and ink if she was to answer Roger’s letter. Whoever brought the materials, she would kill at once inside the room. Then she would slam the door shut, possibly she would be able to roll the body across it to block it while she reloaded. Then the other one… Leonie shuddered and nearly choked on her mouthful of food. There was no sense in feeling sick. She had to do it, had to escape. Roger did not know where she was. He could not save her again.

  When the food was gone, Leonie rested a while. Then she drew her pistols and checked the priming and loading. Finally she went and knocked on the door again. No answer. Could Panel have gone down to eat? Should she blow the lock off the door? No, that would discharge one pistol and place her in even greater danger. Leonie knew she could not hope to hit anything except at point-blank range, and once the men heard the shot they would be warned. She waited a few minutes and knocked again.