Viridian (The Hundred-Days Series Book 2) (47 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

Paris - June 22nd, 1815

Olivia paced the dusty walk
bordering the Place du Trone, trying and failing to keep her eyes from the
mouth of the lane leading out to Vincennes. She and Ty had agreed to wait
somewhere easily identified, but secluded from cheering throngs surging along
Paris’s streets. Place du Trone had seemed sensible when penning her hasty
reply. It was nearest the gate by which Ty’s regiment was expected to enter the
city, its covered walkway untraveled in favor of the wild revelry out in the
square. It hadn’t occurred to her until she stood idle beneath a canopy that
barely saved her from burning afternoon sun what landmarks would comprise her
view. A low, black iron gate marked an entrance to the house of detention
across the place. Madame Guillotine held her ground on the south edge, not
sharing Parisian confidence in her exile. From her hateful position, Place du
Trone narrowed into the mouth of the Cours de Vincennes, its narrow lane
winding to where Philipe lay peacefully under a victory in which he should have
shared.

She reached the end of the walk and
paused, admiring the smart ranks of red and gray soldiers moving
straight-backed into Paris. They marched to the cry of bagpipes that
underscored an insistent drum beat urging them on. Handkerchiefs, frilled or
coarse and masculine, showered the occupiers between a rain of pink cherry
blossoms and white lilies. Something ignited in her heart, and Olivia dared
kindle a small flicker of hope that this time, finally, peace would last.

She searched the shape of every
officer marching smartly beside his company, trying to fit him against a
template, weighing for a familiar figure. Too tall, too much gut, too thin; she
dismissed each man in turn.

He
had
to come today.
Grinding her teeth, she squinted harder against a pounding head, willing the
next and then the next man to be Ty. His last letter had said only that he
expected to arrive today, but she vowed to trust a voice in her heart
whispering that he was near.

Sweat beaded at the crown of her
green silk bonnet, her matching coat a sweltering shroud against the day’s
pitiful breeze. Pulling a small silver watch from her reticule, Olivia realized
she had passed nearly an hour watching the troops come in. Their military
deluge slowed to a trickle, and her chest began to ache.

In pairs and clusters the crowd
moved off, trailing behind a familiar face or simply eager to cheer on their
allies. Disappointment choked her, and it was all that kept her tears at bay.
Ty wasn’t coming, not this afternoon. She struggled with the idea of repeating
her vigil for a third day, and how to fill the lonely hours till then. Hanging
her head, she scrubbed tired eyes.

“Olivia.”

Her name on his lips snapped her
up, and Olivia stared across the
place
without moving, without seeing.
She held her breath, strung taut, waiting for him to touch her. When he didn’t,
she at last turned around.

Ty raised his tall black hat
slowly, revealing how much dust and grit painted his handsome face. He stared
with an expression which must have mirrored her own, a look that said if he
blinked, he expected she’d be gone.

She looked him over head to toe,
prompted by a neat row of stitches cutting from his ear to cheekbone. A hundred
questions sprang to mind, but her tongue couldn’t make enough sense to ask a
single one.

He took a step toward her,
swallowing hard. “There are some things I would like to say to you.” Reaching
out, he claimed her hand with steady pressure, brushing his thumb across her
wedding ring.

She threw herself into his embrace,
stumbling back and sending his hat bouncing along the walkway. Ty’s arms
circled her while she clung desperately to his coat. He stunk like horse and
sweat permeated with gun smoke, and she didn’t care. Long arms crushed her and she
struggled to fill her lungs, but she wouldn’t wriggle or protest and risk him
letting go even a little.

It was Ty who pulled away when the
first real breeze of approaching evening whipped across them inside the
promenade. He flicked a finger at her brim, knocking back her bonnet and
fitting their lips together. The gravity of their reunion was lost, trampled by
her beating heart racing ahead of a hand sliding up her back. Twining arms
around his neck, she crushed their lips closer, digging into damp hair flirting
with his collar. She could not touch him enough, kiss him enough.

At last she released him with a
sigh, putting the barest hint of space between their bodies. Cradling his face,
palm catching his stubble, she traced his wound. “Are you hurt?” She groaned
silently. Of course he was hurt; Olivia shook her head. “I mean, is this the
worst of it or…”

He grinned, brushing scabbed
knuckles over her cheek. “There is but one way of answering that.”

“Stop.” She swatted away his hand
and tried not to smile.

Ty bent and claimed his hat, then
slipped long fingers between her own. “We can go home and stare at each other
all night, Olivia. Fall asleep on the lawn. But I promise you something,” he
murmured, blue eyes wide. “We’re not leaving the house any time soon, and I
won’t be a single moment without you beside me.” He settled her bonnet,
sweeping hair behind her ear. “Starvation, exhaustion, whatever the risk, I’ll
not be parted from you again.”

Her breath quickened at his
promise, and she brushed one last kiss over a saucy twitch of his lips. She was
more than ready to be home, to have Ty all to herself. Twining her arm around
his, she pulled him toward the steps. “Calm yourself on one of those counts,
major. There’s a market between here and the house. We won’t starve.”

CHAPTER FIFTY

Paris - July 1st, 1815

Webb,

In reading through the documents
you’ve sent, I observed a notation about inventory of the government section
offices. If this has not already been tasked, I request it be assigned to my
lot. My lads are level-headed and trustworthy, and I don’t foresee the looting
which has occurred in other parts of the city. There is a good deal of property
secured in the vaults, as I understand it, and all possible should be returned
to anxious families of the dead and exiled. With your permission, I would
like
to examine one office in particular, so that I might have a sense of the mess
for which I’ve volunteered.

– Burrell

He should be ecstatic. The war was
over and Napoleon on the run. France was on her way to diminished chaos. An
ache in his chest allowed him to feel none of it. Exhausted after days of
command work and errands on Matthew's behalf, news he had both dreaded and
expected seemed to have come at last.

Kate had been sent to Antwerp to
wait out the battle in relative safety, or at least to have a means of retreat.
But she wasn't in Antwerp, nor had she reappeared with the regiment. A letter
from Matthew's mother, Lady Adelaide, confirmed that Kate had not returned with
her to London.

Just as he was ready to give up and
leave Antwerp, word had arrived that the
Union
had sunk in open ocean. A
ship, according to the manifest’s last entry, that carried one Katherine
Foster.

Pitted mid-summer roads rattled his
carriage, jarring ugly doubts of grief between his temples, pounding them. If
Matthew had not sent her away, if she had just stayed put in Antwerp... But it
was no one's fault. He wasn't certain if that made things better or worse. Rubbing
a palm over aching eyes, he tried to focus on the task at hand: how to tell
Matthew. He had lost a dear friend, but Webb had lost a piece of himself.

At least he wouldn't have to do it
alone; Olivia was waiting in Paris. If anyone could ease the throbbing in his
chest, tell him how to tear his best friend’s heart in two with compassion, she
could. She could hold him together.

Matthew...Ty shook his head, as
afraid of losing Webb now as he had ever been on the battlefield.

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Paris - July 20th, 1815

Olivia shifted in her chair,
fighting an urge to pace the long hall of the Hotel de Ville. Only the white
plaster of the Roman arches down its length brightened the massive room.
Curtains were drawn against a bank of high windows, ivory silk shutting out the
prying eyes of the curious mobs craning from the street to the see kings and
ministers negotiating inside. Swags of crystal ropes hung from chandeliers like
dusty spider webs, gold gilt glowed dully, and frescos on the vaulted ceiling above
were no more than blotches of indistinct color under the deep shadows. She
shifted again and shivered, as much against her nerves as the room’s chill.

Negotiations had lasted nearly a
week, but she couldn’t bear to accompany Ty every day. On days like today she
came late, sitting in silence until he was finished and they could walk home
together. De Ville’s chilled, empty silence stirred memories. It’s fine
parquetry floor was too much like the Tuileries, its mirrors too much like
Versailles, its existence just as blood-soaked and abandoned. Sitting in the
haunted quiet allowed too many moments of her own terror to slip in. Some days,
she had retreated to the relative peace of her bedchamber to recover, not
coming out unless Ty coaxed her.

Even then she’d made him promise
not to discuss the meetings, even when curiosity pounded her temples and tore
in her chest. Fouche had paused at the gates long enough to shake hands with
the Duke of Wellington before composing his
lists
. His supporters, his
compatriots, anyone he could recall who had joined Napoleon to fight against
the king.
His
king, he had insisted, pointedly ignoring anyone who
pointed out the disparity of his claim. Smartly marching bands of his
hand-picked police already scoured the city, eager to purge the disloyal. It
had been named The White Terror, and more than that she didn’t care to know.
Living through it once had been enough.

The Allies had been shut away all
morning, working to restore some sense of order to Paris first, too daunted by the
greater prospect of France. Talks had begun with settling the terms for
Napoleon’s abdication and second exile. To her disappointment, they had chosen
not to execute him. How did it taste, she wondered, for him to sit across from
Fouche and Talleyrand while they had a hand in humbling him? To be sold by your
former compatriots, exchanged for land and position?
            By the sound of the raised voices and scooting chairs through the
wall behind her, Olivia guessed she’d have her answer soon enough.

Fouche strode from the meeting room
like a conquering hero. Olivia stiffened in her seat to the left of the door,
praying silently he would pass from the foyer without noticing her. When he
tensed at the far doorway, she swore he had heard her thoughts, must have felt
her presence behind him. Black wool. Olivia has no idea why her mind latched
onto that particular detail. Of course his suit was wool, despite stifling
summer heat. It was practical, lasting longer than fine linen, keeping fires
unlit longer in the winter. Practical, and in keeping with his penny-pinching
efficiency, even at the cost of his own suffering. It was not an old suit, she
realized, her eyes fixed on his back. His clothes were crisp and new, of the
most fashionable cut. Fouche thought he was moving up in the world, and clearly
he’d dressed for the part.

He turned slowly, a wolfish smile
spreading as he took her in from head to toe. Then he bowed a little.
“Mademoiselle.”

She fixed her eyes over his
shoulder, refusing to answer. Fouche moved closer, one slow step at a time.
Pressing as far back in her chair as she could manage, Olivia prayed fervently
for Ty, or anyone else, to come from the library.

When he was only a breath away,
Fouche reached out and took her hand, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply on
her perfume. His smile widened, and he opened his eyes again. “I remember you.
My lovely hostess at the comte's estate.” He turned her arm over, searching for
a tattoo that had long since washed away. To his credit he looked amused at
having been duped.

She stared, paralyzed. She’d dealt
with any number of vile people in her time as a spy, done things which would
make a decent person flinch. Face to face with the architect of so much of her
life’s misery, without Whitehall behind her, she felt scarcely able to move.

Her father bleeding, begging for
the mob to spare a woman.

“I can see you better now, without
your mask, Miss Fletcher. Fletcher from your grandfather, if I recall. Your
uncle is Lord Portsmouth, no?”

Her mother, screaming and
screaming, and then nothing but cheers.

Olivia chopped through the
memories, renouncing their power, at least with her enemy an arm’s-length away.
She nodded, not the slightest bit surprised that he recalled her name. Fouche,
the clerk of Hell.

“LaValette,” he muttered. “I know
you well, mademoiselle. A wise man never forgets a pair of eyes that hold a
desire to see him bleed.” Fouche released her from his cool grasp and stepped
back, examining her more carefully. “You were a troublesome girl. I wondered
even then if I had made a mistake, letting you go.”

She found her voice and thanked
years of training in subterfuge for the fact that it came out clearer, stronger
than she felt. “I suppose that depends on whom you ask.”

“Your father.” His head drooped
with theatrical sadness. “He was a true son of France. At least in his soul, if
not his ideas. Led astray, seduced by his English whore.”

She ground teeth into the flesh of
her cheek, determined not to show a hint of the ache radiating through her
chest.

“Brazen!” he snapped. “She
denounced the free people of France, refusing to swear her allegiance to the
true emperor.” Fouche flicked his hand. “And so I told them, 'Take Madame
away.’ How was I to know the mob would be so hungry for blood?”

“How were
you
to know?” She
mimicked his words, mocking him. A man who had filled the Paris sewers with so
much blood that the smell had generated a petition of complaint from the
citizens. She did not believe for a moment that he ever acted without
foreseeing the consequences. Olivia inhaled against tears strangling her
throat.

“Jules ran after her like a
madman.” Fouche clucked his tongue, head shaking. “He could have stayed with
you. That is, if he had truly loved you.”

Cocking her head, Olivia laughed in
spite of herself at the absurdity. “You would simply have set him free, allowed
him to go? Allowed me to go?”

“Of course! He would have seen
reason, eventually. That son of his, however...” His fists clenched, knuckles
going white. “A puppy of the Royalists to this day.”

She had never met her half-brother
Jules, named for their father. A French ambassador now, he was a single room
away. Olivia wondered absently that she could feel no real connection to him.
Perhaps it was simply that all they had in common was misery.

Sneering, Fouche raked a glance
over her. “I should have given you to Talleyrand. He could have molded you into
a tempting diversion. Fortunate for you that meddling uncle of yours paroled
you so quickly.” His posture relaxed a little. “I am told you have come to
Paris more than once, looking for your parents.” He swirled a finger in the
air. “The dressmaker who had to clean their headless carcasses off of her
stoop, perhaps, would have some idea where they are.”

On her feet before she could catch
herself, Olivia came almost nose to nose with the monster, who smiled
triumphantly. The eight months she spent locked in the bowels of La Force were
a nightmare she could never escape. And to feel without a doubt that Fouche had
knowledge of her parents, information he relished withholding...

He was trying to goad her, and she
didn’t care. Rage painted everything red. The knife in her garter pressed
insistently at her thigh. It could be done in a moment, the blade whispered.
She would be blocks away before anyone found him. Grasping her skirts, she
began to raise her hem.

“Do you never wonder at your being
born on the eve of revolution, Olivie?” Fouche pulled a sympathetic face
against his insult. “Perhaps it was an ill omen.”

It was her turn to smile. “Perhaps
it
was
a sign. Perhaps all who live during such times are meant to bring
the sword.” Her sudden change was obviously giving him pause. For the first
time, Fouche drew back a step, eyeing her with a sideways glance.

Releasing her skirts, she abandoned
the idea of her knife for the moment. There was still one sound blow that she
could level at her nemesis. She fiddled with her thumbnail a moment, letting
the tension play on his nerves. “Speaking of old acquaintances, was your Madame
d'Oettlinger able to say her goodbyes to the emperor, before he was exiled? I
know how very
faithfully
she served him.”

Fouche flinched at his lover's
name. Olivia saw the curiosity, the trepidation eating him, but his pride would
never allow him to ask.

It was all right. He didn't have
to.

“Has the lady paid you a call
recently? No?” She paused a moment, as if thoughtful. “Perhaps she is waiting
for you somewhere. Say, the undercroft of a barn in the Verriere wood? But
you
must go to
her
, monsieur.” Olivia shook her head very slowly,
holding up both her hands before his gaunt face. “She cannot possibly come to
you.”

She had only a breath to study him,
to feel satisfaction at the waver in Fouche's expression before he turned on
his heel. Blood sung in her veins, heart and temples pounding with a
bloodthirsty satisfaction which would only be surpassed at seeing Fouche
deposed, or dead. For just a breath, she had stabbed at the beast’s heart. For
her parents and herself, Olivia enjoyed a moment of victory.

Bonaparte came next. He was fitted
in a green uniform, its silk and medals standing in defiance of his defeat.
When had she seen him last? A year at least, being goaded onto a ship for Elba.
There was a perverse pleasure in the idea of seeing his back for a second time.

She had the satisfaction of looking
down at him, though not by much, certainly not as much as British papers
enjoyed suggesting. He had been a little handsome once, mostly owing to his
bearing, but also a sweep of dark hair and his perceptive gray eyes. She could
recall a time when he’d been a fit horseman, and not the paunchy, balding troll
before her now.

He passed her by at first, then
stopped and turned back. His head cocked, slitted eyes looking her up and down.
“Olivie?”

He’d come to it too quickly.
Someone must have given her away; an ill-timed remark from Wellington or Ty to
Prince Metternich, or between other diplomats. Haddon, perhaps. They might
whisper and speak in riddles, but Napoleon’s ears were attuned for any scrap of
information, mind primed to decipher. Pride would never let him admit he hadn’t
guessed her identity on his own.

She wondered that he condescended
to notice, and nodded. “Oui.”

He tucked a hand into the seam
between two buttons of his waistcoat, nodding. “You have your mother's face.
And your father's arrogance.”

She met his eyes, unblinking. “And
my people's hatred of you.”

If he felt the insult, he didn't
acknowledge it. Instead, he seemed to work through some problem, why she was
here now and what she had been doing before. Then his face relaxed at the
answer. “It was
you
that my agent took into the Verriere wood.”

Rage welled up, filling her chest,
straining at her ribs till they ached. “And it was
I
who came back.”

He chuckled a little. “Your father
gone. Your uncle, both your brothers
émigrés
.” He looked her over again.
“And here you still stand,” he said, making a short bow. “The only
man
in your family.”

His words were a high sign of
respect, but she would die before acknowledging it. “With the help of your dog
Fouche, that is true.”

A fire seemed to enter his eyes a
moment. “The blood on my hands was necessary. The enemies of Republic had to be
culled.” This was why he was so dangerous. He
believed
in his words.

“You seemed rather frightened of
the Duc de la Porte. Was
he
an enemy of France?” she mocked.

For the first time, Napoleon's
expression went flat, a pond on a still day. “No. Merely clipping a thread from
my sleeve.”

She reached deep inside her
reticule, producing Thalia's skinny auburn braid, the only memento she had
allowed herself from her ordeal in the Verriere. Dangling it before Napoleon,
she smiled. “I have also clipped a thread.”

Olivia had the satisfaction of
watching his lip curl, stare blackening before he shrugged. “The spy is
inherently a traitor.”

She allowed the barest smile for
Fouche's beloved phrase. “He would know. How many times has he betrayed you
now; three, four?” Stepping back, she raised a fist. “Vive l'empereur.” She
relished his retreat, shoving between the Duke of Wellington and Talleyrand,
obviously tired of their verbal sparring match. He didn’t cow, didn’t waver as
Fouche had, and though she hated Napoleon with near-equal fervor, she could
respect him a bit more.

Talleyrand bustled along behind,
but Wellington stayed put, his tall figure a bookend to Ty, both looming over
beady-eyed Prince Metternich.

The Duke observed his old
adversary’s retreat. “That is the second sound beating he's taken in a month,”
he quipped, crossing his arms and looking pleased. With her or with himself,
Olivia could hardly guess.

Concern pulled Ty’s face into a
frown, and she wished they were alone, just to share an embrace. “Say all you
needed to?”