She had almost reached the landing when she heard Jean Marc’s voice behind her. “Juliette.”
She glanced down to see Jean Marc standing in the doorway of the salon and unconsciously tensed. “Yes?”
His dark eyes narrowed on her face. “Why Citizeness Justice?” he asked softly.
Juliette quickly glanced away. “I told you it wasn’t important.”
“No? I’m beginning to wonder just what you do consider important.”
“My painting. Catherine.”
“And nothing else?”
“Nothing else.”
Jean Marc’s lips were lifted in a faint smile, and there was something in his expression that was both intimate and challenging. She became suddenly aware of the physical presence he exuded, the wideness of his shoulders beneath the smooth fit of his gray coat, the sinewy muscles of his thighs outlined by the clinging doeskin of his trousers, the flatness of his belly. She found herself gazing at him in helpless fascination unable to look away.
His intent gaze held hers for another moment. “How interesting. And challenging. We really must attempt to widen your horizons.” He turned and strode back into the salon.
Her breath expelled in a little rush as if his departure had forced its release.
“Did you ask if she’d see me?”
To her amazement, she had forgotten Philippe was there the moment Jean Marc had appeared in the foyer. The knowledge sent a tingle of uneasiness through her. Jean Marc had been there only one day and he was already overshadowing everyone and everything around her.
Philippe took a step forward. “I’d still like to express my shame for my—”
“Shame? Let me tell you about shame.” Juliette’s hand tightened on the oak banister as she looked down at him. “Catherine is so full of shame she can’t look you in the face. I can’t make her understand the shame belongs to the guilty, not to the victim. For some reason she thinks you’re a gentleman of such nicety of character you’ll find her abhorrent.”
“Then let me tell her differently.” Philippe took another step forward. “Let me tell her I’m the one to blame.”
“She wouldn’t believe you. Do you know her so little? She would see your shame and think it a reflection of her own.”
“Tell her—Never mind. There’s nothing I can say, is there?”
“No.” Juliette hesitated. To her surprise the desolation in his expression moved her. Everyone mentioned that Philippe had a way with women, but she had not thought herself vulnerable to his charm. “Perhaps you may try in a few days.”
His expression brightened. “And you’ll tell me if there’s anything I can do for either of you? It would be my great pleasure to serve you in any way.”
“If there is, I shall tell you.” As Juliette climbed the stairs she could feel his wistful gaze on her back.
Peacock and panther, she mused. And dominating both of them was the darkly glittering, enigmatic mirror who was Jean Marc Andreas.
She abruptly stopped and looked down as she reached the head of the stairs. “Paints and canvas.”
Philippe was startled. “What?”
“If I’m to be imprisoned here in this house for any time, I must have paints and canvas. Will you see to it?”
She didn’t wait for an answer but turned on her heel and moved down the hall toward Catherine’s chamber.
“Monsieur Jean Marc is not at home. Will you wait in the salon while I tell Mademoiselle Juliette you’ve arrived?” Robert asked as he took François’s hat and gloves and laid them on the table in the center of the foyer. “I believe she’s upstairs in the—”
“No.” François certainly didn’t need Juliette de Clement lashing out at him today. He had come directly from the assembly and was already raw enough with the talk of Dupree’s latest massacre. He didn’t know why he called now. He’d had no intention of obeying Juliette’s command to appear at frequent intervals at the Place Royale, and it had been only two days since he had slammed this very door and stalked out of the house. Still, now that he was there, he might just as well stay for a brief time. “Show me to the garden.”
Robert blinked and then nodded. “Oh, you wish to see Mademoiselle Catherine? Certainly, Monsieur. This way.”
François hesitated as Robert started across the foyer. He had no desire to see Catherine Vasaro either. He had thought he was too hardened for either pity or regret to touch him, but looking at Catherine filled him with a strange poignant desire to soothe and protect.
Robert was looking at him inquiringly over his shoulder.
François slowly followed him across the foyer toward the glass-paned double doors leading to the garden.
Catherine Vasaro sat on a marble bench by the fountain in the center of the garden, her hands folded on her lap. He was vaguely aware she was dressed in something blue and soft and that the sunlight threaded glints of gold through her light brown hair.
“It’s Monsieur Etchelet,” Robert said gently as he paused before Catherine. “He’s come to see you, Mademoiselle Catherine.”
“Has he?” Catherine lifted her gaze from her folded hands to look beyond Robert’s shoulder at Etchelet. Her brow furrowed in puzzlement. “François. Your name is François, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” He stood looking at her as Robert turned and walked back toward the house. She appeared even more fragile than when he had last seen her. Dark shadows underscored her eyes, and she appeared thinner, the bones of her wrists breakable. “You’ve not been eating.”
“I’ve been eating a little. I don’t seem to be very hungry.” She looked down at her hands again. “I remember now. You were angry with me. Why were you angry?”
“I wasn’t angry.” He dropped down on the marble bench across the path from her. “Well, perhaps a little.”
“Why?”
“You gave up. You can’t ever give up. No matter how much it hurts, you have to endure. That’s the only way to survive to avenge yourself.”
She looked up at him. “But I don’t want revenge.”
“Of course you do,” he said harshly. “It’s only human to want it. Anyone would—” He stopped as he realized she was staring at him as if he were speaking in a language foreign to her. The comparison was apt, for she looked like some serene, gentle being from a land alien to any he knew. A land where there were no Duprees, no compromises, no jostling for power, no bloody massacres.
He glanced away from her, filled with the sense of sick premonition that she would be destroyed. This world had no tolerance for gentleness. Forgiveness was a weakness. And he was helpless to change any of it.
“I’m … sorry.” Her voice was hesitant. “I’ve made you angry again, haven’t I?”
“Why should you care if I’m angry? For the love of God, worry about yourself.”
Her hands were opening and closing nervously on her lap. “It’s more than anger. You have … pain.”
“Nonsense.”
She didn’t seem to hear him. “This garden helps. For the past few days I’ve come here to sit for hours. The feel of the sunlight on my face and the sound of the birds in the trees … Sometimes you can wrap the silence around you and close the pain out.” A gentle smile turned her face luminous. “Perhaps the garden will help you too.”
Dieu, she was going through an inward agony and yet she was still trying to help him banish the unrest she sensed in him. François suddenly realized Catherine was like the garden she had just described—beautiful, serene, lit by sun and yet vulnerable to every cruel wind. He could feel her serenity flow over him, soothing the rawness he had brought with him.
He sat silently, gazing at her with the same expression of bewilderment and wonder with which she’d looked at him. He suddenly knew he wanted to stay there. He wanted to sit in that garden and look at Catherine Vasaro and let peace and silence replace the turbulence of the outside world. Yet how could he do so when he had chosen his battleground?
He stood up abruptly. “No, merci. I wo
n’t stay in your garden. You can sit here and close yourself away from the world, but I have things to do with my life.”
Some untranslatable emotion flickered across her face before she once more lowered her gaze to the hands folded on her lap.
He stared at her for a moment, an inexplicable frustration aching in him. He left her then without a word.
It didn’t improve his temper to encounter Juliette de Clement in the foyer.
“I was wondering when you would see fit to visit us,” Juliette said. “We could have been—”
“Blue.”
Juliette blinked. “What?”
François picked up his hat and gloves from the table and turned toward the front door. “Etienne Malpan’s eyes were blue.”
“Oh, you did go to the graveyard.” Juliette paused on the bottom step, her gaze narrowed on his face. “What about the other man? Can you find out who he was?”
“Are you never satisfied? There were over two hundred men at the massacre at the abbey.”
“Catherine has nightmares every single night. She’s obsessed that those two men have no faces for her.” Her lips tightened. “Besides, I want to know.”
“I’ve given you one face. You’ll have to be content with Malpan.” François opened the door. “I’ve better things to do with my time than conduct an inquiry that not only could take months but also arouse suspicion among Dupree’s men.”
The door was swinging shut as she called, “François.”
“I told you I won’t—”
“Thank you.”
He looked at her warily but could detect no mockery in her expression.
“I know you didn’t have to do that for Catherine,” she said simply. “I suppose I can wait to find out about the other man.”
“I’m glad I did something to please you.”
“Oh, you did.” Her eyes were suddenly twinkling with mischief. “But you didn’t do everything I asked. Your hat has no cockade and—”
The slam of the door cut off Juliette’s final words.
NINE
I have to talk to you, Jean Marc.”
Jean Marc looked up from the document he was studying to see Juliette standing in the doorway of the study. The emerald green of her gown contrasted magnificently with her skin and unruly dark curls which seemed to shimmer while her eyes sparkled. He had been deliberately avoiding Juliette for the whole month past; now her sheer vitality sent a sensual shock through him. He felt every muscle tense as he fought the response she always provoked in him. “Can’t it wait? I’m busy.”
“Don’t tell me you’re busy.” Juliette moved across the study toward the desk. “You’re always busy. You work in here day and night and I never get a chance to talk to you. Not once in the past month have you even had supper with Philippe and me.”
Jean Marc leaned back in his chair. “My dear Juliette, those damned Jacobins have taken over the government and I’m trying to keep them from stealing everything I own.” He smiled. “However, I didn’t realize I’d been missed. Perhaps if you’d said s’il vous plaît, Jean Marc, I would have—”
“I believe Catherine’s with child.”
Jean Marc went still. “No.”
“I am afraid it is so. She’s not had her flux due a fortnight ago. At first I couldn’t believe it.” Juliette smiled bitterly. “You’d think God had given her enough to bear and would spare her this. What are you going to do?”
“I must think about it.”
“Think? Do something. Catherine is so filled with shame, she’s drowning in it. She wakes screaming every night.”
“I said that I must think.”
Juliette took a step closer. “And while you’re thinking, what if it occurs to her that she’s with child and she kills herself? Do you wish such a thing to happen?”
Anger surged through Jean Marc. “And what should I do? Find a dirty old woman in one of the back streets to kill the child in her womb? Did it ever occur to you to kill the child might also kill Catherine?”
“Don’t be foolish—or misunderstand me in this. Catherine would never accept the murder of her babe, but she can’t be made to suffer even greater shame. I’ve been thinking about it.” Juliette paused. “You must find her a husband.”
“Indeed? Who?”
“How do I know? It’s your responsibility. You’re the one who was too busy to come when she needed you. Now you should be the one to help her.”
He lifted a brow. “Are you suggesting I offer myself on the marital altar?”
“Bon Dieu, no! She already quakes when you frown at her. She’d snap like the ribs of a fan before you’d been wed a month.”
“I’m not an ogre and I don’t appreciate you—” Jean Marc stopped, his gaze narrowing thoughtfully. “But if not me, perhaps she could—”
“No!” Juliette immediately realized where his logic was leading. “You’re thinking of Philippe. She wouldn’t marry him.”
“Why not? She’s always been fond of him.”
“Fond? She adores him. She’s besotted with him. She blushes at the mere mention of his name.”
“Good. Then it’s settled. It’s time Philippe married and it will be an advantageous match for them both. He always has loved Vasaro and will continue to be an excellent manager.”
“Settled? You haven’t even discussed it with him.”
“I’ll speak to him immediately. I’m sure there will be no problem. Philippe likes Catherine and he appears genuinely remorseful for—”
Juliette adamantly shook her head. “Anyone else. Not Philippe.”
“You make no sense whatsoever.” Jean Marc frowned. “Philippe will treat her with the greatest tenderness.”
“Haven’t you been listening to me? She loves that beautiful peacock. Do you think she’d force herself on him in marriage when she won’t even allow herself to be in the same room with him?”
“I’ll talk to her.” He started for the door. “It’s an excellent solution and it’s unreasonable of her to—”
“Dear heaven, she’s in pain. How do you expect her to be reasonable?” She rushed after him. “You must not tell her she’s with child.”
He stopped with his hand on the knob of the door. “You’re sure she doesn’t know?”
Juliette shook her head. “She’s like a child herself now. You shouldn’t tell her. She’ll accept that she has to wed to hide her shame. She mustn’t know there’s anything else to hide.”
“It’s not something you can hide indefinitely.”
“Perhaps she’ll be better soon,” Juliette said desperately, her eyes glittering with unshed tears. “She has to get better, doesn’t she?”
Jean Marc was strangely moved. Juliette, too, was like a child frantically seeking reassurance. Mother of God, he wanted to think only of her strengths, not her weaknesses. Yet he found he couldn’t deny her comfort. “We will find a way to make sure she gets better.”
Juliette’s gaze clung to Jean Marc’s. Abruptly, then, she glanced away and stepped back. She moistened her lips. “You won’t speak to her about Philippe? It will only make her weep.”
“I’ll wait until after I speak to Philippe at least.”
“I don’t know why you even bother getting his approval on the disposition of his life.” Her tone was especially tart. “Doesn’t everyone do as you wish them to do?”
He smothered a smile. “For the most part, but one must display a certain courtesy. I shall speak to Philippe and then talk to Catherine.”
She sighed and shook her head. “You’re making a mistake.”
Jean Marc frowned as he came down the steps toward Juliette and Philippe, waiting for him in the foyer.
“I told you it would do no good,” Juliette said, reading his expression. “You should have listened to me.”
“I’m getting exceptionally tired of listening to you,” Jean Marc said in a clipped tone. “I wonder the nuns were able to tolerate you for more than a fortnight.”
“T
hey considered me a scourge, good for their souls.”
An unexpected smile banished the look of annoyance from Jean Marc’s face. “As do I.”
Juliette’s own exasperation melted away as she looked at him. It was difficult to be angry at a man who could smile after being proved wrong. “I suppose you made her cry.”
Jean Marc grimaced. “I never imagined she would become so upset. Perhaps you’d better go to her. She seems distraught.”
Philippe took a step forward. “Perhaps I should go up and explain that this marriage is entirely by my will. I can’t understand why she has so suddenly taken this dislike to me. I only want to help la pauvre petite.”
“And have her see you pitying her?” Juliette started up the stairs. “Even Jean Marc would be a better husband to her than you.”
“You’ve reconsidered my eligibility, then?” Jean Marc asked.
“You needn’t be sarcastic just because you were wrong and I was right. You’d do much better to channel your thoughts to finding a solution to Catherine’s predicament. I don’t see that a husband should be a problem. François says you’re very good at bribery. Buy her one.”
“Oh, now I should buy her one. At a slave market on the vast Arabian desert? Where am I to find this convenient husband?”
“That’s your affair. I’ve told you what’s needed. It’s your place to supply it.”
The door to Catherine’s chamber closed behind Juliette and she stood there silently cursing Jean Marc and mankind in general. Catherine was lying on the bed sobbing in an attitude of complete desolation, her slight body shuddering with sobs.
“Stop it.” Juliette strode forward. “There’s no reason to weep. All the stupidity is over.”
Catherine quickly rolled over and sat up. “I can’t do it, Juliette. Jean Marc is angry with me, but I can’t do it.”
“I know you can’t.” Juliette picked up a linen handkerchief from the table beside the bed and gently wiped Catherine’s cheeks. “No one is going to make you marry Philippe if you don’t wish to.”
“How could Jean Marc ask him to do such a thing?” Catherine asked wonderingly. “He loves Philippe. Philippe deserves a wife who can come to him clean and free from the taint—”