French Passion (37 page)

His finger lightly rubbed my lower lip, and the thrill of his touch leaped through my body. My breath caught.

“Yes?” he whispered.

Yes, I thought, yes. I was ready for him. He had retained the power to arouse me, he still made me want him—however much I resented the wanting. As his finger moved lightly on my lips, the familiar weakening warmth spread through me. My anxiety to rescue him from this awful place remained, but every vestige of anger melted.

“It's been so long,” I whispered shakily.

“Should I take that to mean you've been faithful?”

I nodded.

His dark eyes were suddenly curious. “Why?”

“We're married. It would be wrong.”

“My dear, you're incorrigibly, incurably honest. Why not lie? Say you care too deeply for me to let our love be defiled.” He spoke jestingly, yet in his eyes were two pinpoints of unhappiness.

“Comte, in England you have many friends, both French and English.” I was trapped between desire and the need to impose my will on him. “And it's pleasurable knowing you can earn your keep.”

“I'd make an excellent stable hand, you think?”

“Be serious.”

“Why? Amuse me. Are you thinking to support me as you do your brother, painting portraits? By the by, thank you for the letters. I take it you never got my replies?”

“No,” I said. “Please, please, Comte, we have so very little time. Help me. Tell me what to do. You're so very clever.”

“How shall we pass the hours you aren't daubing to earn our bread?”

What could I say to bring him to his senses, make him at least try to escape? What meant much to him? “I'm so very sorry about our baby. I want us to have others.”

“The thought of not having a child by you saddens me,” he said harshly. “Therefore it's not amusing.”

Pages of Colonel Duval's book rustled. The Comte turned away.

His face still averted, he said, “Listen to me, my dear, for I say this one final time. I've shed blood for France, I've spent my life serving her. My ancestors did the same. They are buried here. And here my bones, too, will lie. Do you understand? I—do—not—run—away.”

Memory, sharp as a new blade, cut through me. That long-ago morning when, in lieu of apology, he'd revealed the brave little boy he'd been, never asking quarter, never running from a fight.

He turned, smiling. “Cheer up. Black will suit you well, with those clear green eyes and that lovely pale hair. You'll be the most charming widow in London.” He pressed his heavily bristled cheek to mine, whispering against my ear, “Ever since you walked in I've been aching for you. You want me. Think. We can spend our last minutes together, not arguing, but doing what gives us the greatest pleasure.”

I flushed, involuntarily glancing at the colonel's back.

“Him? I'll strangle him with my bare hands. He'll die within the week anyway. And this will be a far more worthy cause.” There was amusement in his whisper. All at once amusement faded and his low voice clotted. “Oh, my sweetest dear, how I've missed you, how I've missed you.”

His large hands cupped my breasts, all too vulnerable under the thin flowered lawn, his breath was hot against my ear. Quivers of pleasure traveled along my nerves, and my arms went hungrily around him. Caressing his shoulders, I curved myself into his body. In that wildly passionate embrace it didn't seem possible that my husband, vital and demanding, could refuse to quit this antechamber of death.

He must have read my thoughts. “I've had the best life has to offer,” he whispered.

It was a compliment, yet a coldness went through me. My body stopped responding. I grew stiff as if I were embracing a corpse.

The Comte pulled away. His voice earnest, he said, “Go back to London. Leave today.”

“You won't join me so we may once again enjoy … the act of love?” My body was numb, yet I managed to make my voice flirtatious.

The Comte took my hands, his grip tightening, and for a brief instant I remembered how he'd grasped them as CoCo was tearing free of my body.

“Leave,” he said, his voice dead level. “Go today. You must not see your old lover.”

At mention of André, I could not look at my husband. Had he guessed, at some point, why I'd left France? Or was he jealous?

“I have no thought of seeing him,” I said.

His hard grip didn't loosen. “After my death you'll be tempted,” he said.

I shook my head. “No,” I lied. Of course I'd be tempted, but my going to André would harm him. “No.”

The Comte's expression changed to a dark emotion. There was no trace of jealousy, only of fear for me. “Don't argue,” he said. “You'll want to see him. And the circumstances of his birth make him dangerous, very dangerous.”

Here was yet another strand in the impenetrable web of mystery that surrounded André's background. The Comte appeared to be one of the few privy to the intrigue. “But who
are
his parents? They're dead, I know that much. So how can they endanger anyone?”

“I should have remembered danger acts on you as catnip on a cat.”

“Comte—”

“The less you know, the safer you'll be,” he said, adamant. “England is safe. It is my last wish that you return. There, my dear, Camberwell and Camberwell will give you a pleasant surprise.”

The bolt grated. The Comte loosed my hands, and we pulled apart.

The Comte gave the guard the same unseeing nod he'd bestowed on his servants. His servants had admired him and remained loyal. The guard appeared to have the same respect. He made a small anxious bow. “Comte, it's time for the lady—the citizeness to leave.”

The Comte took my cape from the pallet, handing it to me. “Thank you for a pleasurable break in my routine, Citizeness,” he said, bowing formally.

His clever raisin-dark eyes were amused, sad, loving, and very alive.

Chapter Two

When I emerged, rain was falling, more of the unseasonal fine rain that fit my hopeless gloom. Sentries crossed and recrossed the huge courtyard. The women had left the stone staircase and the tumbrel no longer waited.

Beyond the courtyard railings was a hack stand. The equipages were gone. There were no carts or wagons in sight. I would have to walk the long way back to Hôtel des Anglais.

I trudged along, shivering. The streets hadn't been mended. Stretches of stone were missing, and in these holes the mud was thick, sucking at my shoes. The left heel was loose and a few times the shoe came off completely. As I bent to replace it, my flowered green skirt and traveling cape would sink in the mud. Soon I didn't even try to lift them. The hems dragged after me.

The few minutes in the Comte's cell had unnerved me. I was consumed with dread for him. I forgot the questions about André. As rain penetrated my summer-light cape, I thought about the Comte. He had integrity of spirit. An aristocrat to his marrow, he was endowed with courage and dignity—and a way of laughing at these qualities.

I wasn't sure whether it was this indomitable wit or his bravery or the passion he'd roused in me. Inside me was an even stronger determination to keep him from death.

But how, I asked myself leadenly. He refuses to escape.

I crossed the Seine. Below me, on rain-rippled water, a blinkered mule pulled a barge. One barge, where there had been so many.

The Comte's motivations remained an enigma to me. He still wanted me in every way a man can want a woman, that had been obvious. Yet at the same time he refused to even consider escape. He would rather die in a country that no longer wanted him or his kind than to live abroad.

“He won't even try!” I heard myself mutter. “He prefers this new guillotine thing to me!”

Horrified at this odd spurt of rage, I stumbled. Only my gloved hands prevented me from cracking my chin. Mud splattered my skirts to midthigh. Ragged washerwomen scrubbing under a covered fountain, cackled loudly. The sight of a well-dressed woman in misery gave them joy.

Their unpleasant laughter followed me onto Rue Maupin, the couturier center where Court ladies and wealthy bourgeois wives had come to have gowns and mantles and
jupes
designed for them, fitted for them. Their gilded coaches, blazoned with coats of arms, both real and spurious, were gone, and only a few discreetly drab equipages waited. Quite a few houses had been burned, and weeds straggled up through blackened foundations. At number eleven the windows had been boarded. Shutters swung, creaking eerily. I was glad Monsieur Sancerre wasn't here to see the decay of the establishment he'd worked so hard to build. I hurried by.

There must be a way to save the Comte, I thought over and over, but the words were like a useless incantation to ward off the inevitable. My mind had become as sodden as my clothes.

Hearing the splash of hooves behind me, I edged closer to the tall buildings. A hired cabriolet moved briskly up Rue Maupin. The two-wheel vehicle was already taken, so I kept walking. The driver and passenger sped by. I glanced at them, absently noting the leather hood and leather lap cover, envying these in an equally remote manner.

With a loud grinding of brakes, the cabriolet splashed to a halt.

A familiar voice cried, “Manon! Manon! Is that really you?”

“Goujon!” I shouted, and was running toward the hack. “Oh, Goujon, of all the people in Paris to meet! What a lucky coincidence!”

He stepped down. “Name of God, you're soaked through and shivering.” And without another word, he lifted me as easily as if I were a child over the wheel and into the seat between his and the driver's. The two men solicitously wrapped the bearhide rug around my sopping skirt, then fastened down the protective leather apron.

Goujon was as I'd last seen him, in bourgeois clothing. In the past I would have thought this giant, his red beard trimmed, his red hair clubbed back, wearing a dish-shaped hat, snuff-colored breeches and cloak, unbuckled shoes, plain linen, an ordinary shopkeeper. In contrast with the poverty I'd seen today, he looked magnificent.

“I didn't know you were in Paris,” he said. “Izette saw me just last week, and she never mentioned that you were here.”

“Izette doesn't know, not yet. I arrived last evening.” Under the warm robe, I kicked off wet shoes, trying to warm my wet-stockinged feet against my calves. We were ready to move, so I said, “I'm staying at Hôtel des Anglais.”

He nodded over my head at the driver. “Hôtel des Anglais, Citizen.” The cab driver touched his whip to his horse, and we lurched forward. Goujon asked, “Why are you here?” Under his breath adding, “I asked you not to come back.”

“The Comte is in the Conciergerie.”

“The very place for him.” There was an edge of steel in that deep voice. But why not? Hadn't Goujon helped found the Jacobin Club, which sought to overthrow the monarchy and all connected with it? “So it's he who has brought you back?”

“No. In fact he ordered me not to come. But how could I stay away? I'm married—”

At this Goujon's giant shoe kicked my leg. He glanced meaningfully at the driver, who was staring ahead at his horse's drenched mane.

Goujon boomed, “You released prisoners of the Bastille are a breed apart. I remember as if it were yesterday you saving the idiot. Half dead from terror and deprivation, yet you braved the people's anger to rescue a poor slobbering fool. Name of God! I never saw more courage even on a day famed for courage.” He gave another glance at the driver, and we began talking about what the unseasonally rain-swept July would do to any crops that might have been planted.

After he paid off the driver at Hôtel des Anglais, I took his arm, keeping him outside on the deserted street.

“I must save the Comte,” I said in a low voice. “Will you help me?” I had discounted all my husband had said about informing on any who took part in rescuing him. “Will you?”

“No,” Goujon said flatly. “It's time he was punished for profiteering on bread.”

“The Comte never bought grain for himself.”

“Whom did he buy it for, then?”

“King Louis. The royal family always needed money. You know their extravagances. If the Comte hadn't speculated on grain, someone else would have. Bread prices would have shot up anyway. And taxes would have been raised besides, to pay for the Queen's jewels and the expenses of the Court at Versailles.” I paused. “However much you despise the Comte, he's a brilliant financier and someone else would have done far more harm.”

“Monarchists are a foul bunch.”

The rain had stopped, and I pulled off the sodden cape. This masculine game of politics always angered me. Monarchists, Revolutionaries, Jacobins, Girondists—each man was shunted into a pigeonhole where he could be admired or condemned.

“The Comte,” I said quietly, “did what he thought best for France.”

“Let his judges decide that.”

“He says he'll go to the guillotine.”

“He's right,” Goujon said.

“So the trial's a farce.”

Goujon took my arm. He was using only a small part of his strength, still I had to grit my teeth in order not to cry out.

He said in that deceptively gentle voice, “The people rule now.”

“You must work with me! I can't let him die, Goujon, on the boat to England, I lost his child.” My voice choked with misery as I remembered a fat man terrified by mountainous waves, a trunk sliding toward me.

“Did you suffer so much, little Manon?”

Goujon's bearded face was uneasy, surprised. And then I knew that Goujon cared for me, not love as I considered it, yet he cared enough so that Izette's remark,
the great gawk's in love with you
, had validity. My eyelids flickered as I looked up at him. Always I've shrunk from using men who care for me. Yet the ship of my life was crashing on the lodestone rock, and Denis was the large sturdy raft that fate had sent me.