Juliette swallowed to keep back the bile threatening to choke her. She must not faint.
The queen must see her.
Fight the dizziness, fight the despair. She would be better soon. She had promised Jean Marc she wouldn’t swoon.
The queen climbed the steps, stumbling as she reached the platform and trod on the foot of Sanson, the executioner. “Pardon, Monsieur,” she stammered. “I did not mean it.”
Juliette could barely see through the veil of tears. The crowd was yelling, the queen desperately looked at those in the crowd, as if searching for help which would not come.
She must see her.
Juliette fumbled at the ribbons beneath her chin and tore off her bonnet, at the same time stepping closer to the platform.
At last, Marie Antoinette’s frightened gaze fell on Juliette. For an instant, the faintest flicker lightened the terror in her face.
Then the executioner pushed her toward the guillotine.
A moment later Sanson triumphantly held up the queen’s head for the approval of the crowd.
But Juliette was not there to see it. Jean Marc was already pushing through the crowd, propelling Juliette forcefully across the square toward the side street where the carriage waited.
“I’ve lost my bonnet,” Juliette said woodenly. “I must have dropped it on the ground by the platform.”
“Yes.” As they broke free from the crowd Jean Marc’s arm encircled Juliette’s waist and hurried her toward the carriage
“She saw me. Did you see her expression? Just for a moment, she saw me.”
“Yes, she knew you were there.” Jean Marc opened the door and lifted her into the carriage. “Home,” he called to the coachman before he climbed into the coach after her.
He pulled Juliette into his arms and rocked her in an agony of sympathy as the carriage rolled down the cobblestoned streets away from the Place de la Révolution.
“I didn’t swoon. I promised you I wouldn’t—”
She slumped against him in a dead faint.
When she awoke she was in Jean Marc’s bed, unclothed except for a white satin robe. Jean Marc lay naked beside her, his arms holding her with the same gentle strength as they had in the carriage. The velvet drapes at the window were drawn, and tall white candles burned in the candelabrum across the room.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I broke my promise. I didn’t mean to be so much trouble to you.”
“Be quiet.” Jean Marc’s gentle kiss on her temple belied the roughness of his words.
“Will it ever stop?” she asked in wonder. “So much blood …” She was silent a moment. “They were glad to see her die. Did you hear them cheering?”
Jean Marc didn’t answer.
“Why should they be so happy? Didn’t they understand? She wasn’t brilliant like Madame de Staël, she was only an ordinary woman. She made mistakes but she never truly meant to be cruel.”
Jean Marc reached over and took a goblet from the table by the bed. “Fruit juice. You’ve eaten nothing all day. Drink it.”
She obediently swallowed the tart drink and he put the goblet back on the table. He drew her closer, cradling her cheek in the hollow of his naked shoulder.
“I’m so tired, Jean Marc.”
“I know.” His fingers tangled in her curls. “Rest.”
“I want to see Catherine. I’d like to go to Vasaro and see Catherine. Do you suppose I could do that?”
“Yes, I’ll arrange it in the morning.”
“Catherine … François loves her.”
“Does he?”
“Yes, he does, Jean Marc. Every time he mentioned her name I could see … I knew something was wrong. I had to pull it out of him.”
“I’m surprised you succeeded.”
“I just kept at him.”
“Now that doesn’t surprise me at all.”
“The dauphin. I have to help Louis Charles. I promised her …”
“You have time. Go to Vasaro and rest first.”
“I’m so sleepy … How peculiar. I just woke up.” She forced her lids to open. “The fruit juice. Did you put something in it?”
“Yes.”
“As you did to François at Vasaro.”
“Only enough to give you a sound sleep.”
“With no dreams?”
He kissed her forehead. “No dreams.”
Jean Marc entered the salon an hour later. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. But I do thank you for coming.”
François didn’t bother to rise from his chair or look up from his goblet of wine. “I didn’t miss you. Robert kept me very well supplied from your excellent cellar.”
“Juliette insisted on going to the Place de la Révolution. You weren’t there?”
François took another drink of wine. “My business is to get them out of prison, not to watch them die when I fail. I decided to get drunk instead. Unfortunately I have a very good head. However, I’ll arrive there eventually.”
“Why the hell did you fail? You had money, the time—”
“And Monsieur working against me.”
“Monsieur?”
“The good Comte de Provence, the king’s brother. He originally organized our group two years ago. Everything went very well while we were freeing only the nobles. What would a king be without a court?” François lifted his glass to his lips. “It was only when it became urgent to free the royal family he suddenly discovered a lack of funds. It seems the good Monsieur wished to become king of France … He has to have spies in both our group and in the convention. Every time we were ready to move, he blocked us. Oh, not in any obvious way. He didn’t reveal my identity or sacrifice the rest of us.”
“And you don’t know who the spy is in your group?”
“I have an excellent idea. I’ve initiated a plan to make certain.”
“The count wants the boy to die too?”
“Of course, he’s in the way. Louis Charles is now king of France. But I will get him out of the Temple.”
“I will get him out of the Temple. But I’ll have to do it alone.”
Jean Marc smiled. “Do you think Juliette would let you try to free him without her help? Which places me in the unenviable position of trying to stop her or making sure she accomplishes your common goal with all speed.”
François slowly lifted his head. “And which is it to be?”
“I’ll not stand by and see her suffer a second time like this. I’m sending Juliette to Vasaro tomorrow. Is it possible we could get the boy out before she returns?”
“Nothing can be done at once. The convention is expecting the royalists to be stirred up by the queen’s death into making some sort of rescue attempt. They’ve increased the guards at the Temple.”
“How long do we have to wait?”
“Perhaps a month or two.” François rose and swayed. “I feel … Perhaps I’ve succeeded in getting drunk after all.”
Jean Marc stepped forward and put an arm around François’s shoulders. “Merde, I seem to be doing nothing this night but acting as a prop.” He sighed resignedly. “You’d best spend the night here. I’ll take you upstairs and put you to bed.”
“How kind of you.” François’s tone was scrupulously polite even as his knees gave way. “Too kind …”
“I agree,” Jean Marc said dryly. “It seems to me I was a good deal better off when I wasn’t so kind.”
“She’ll see Catherine.… Catherine …”
The geraniums were in full bloom, burnishing the fields with flame and heady fragrance when Juliette arrived at Vasaro.
Catherine was waiting on the front steps and threw herself at Juliette who’d just emerged from the carriage. Then she held her at arm’s length, gazing into her face. Jean Marc had sent a letter by messenger on the day Juliette left Paris, warning Catherine of her dear friend’s condition. Indeed she did appear to be drained, sapped of her characteristic energy and vivacity. But there was more. Much more. When Juliette had left
Vasaro she had retained remnants of the impatient, impulsive child Catherine had grown up with at the abbey. Now Catherine could catch only the faintest glimpse of that child in the woman who had taken her place. Catherine experienced an instant of poignant regret. They were both changing and being changed, but not together as she had once hoped. “It’s terrible what they did to Her Majesty.”
“Terrible things happen everywhere.” Juliette put her arm around Catherine’s waist. “But perhaps not here. I needed to be reminded that there are still places like this in the world.”
Catherine smiled and took off Juliette’s bonnet, affectionately tousling her friend’s dark curls. “You must change your gown and come down to the fields with me right away. For the next two days you’ll do nothing but work with Michel and me.”
Juliette looked at her quizzically. “I must labor for my bed and board?”
Catherine nodded. “Of course, everyone works at Vasaro.” She smiled serenely. “You must pick the flowers, Juliette.”
TWENTY-TWO
You’ve not only failed, you’ve become a monster,” Anne Dupree said coldly. “How do you expect to be accepted by the gentlemen of the convention?”
“I couldn’t help it,” Dupree whimpered. “I had to hide from the policia and almost died. By the time it was safe for me to go to a surgeon, my bones had healed wrong.”
“Better you had died than come back to me like this. What use are you to me? Do you expect me to care for you when it’s your duty to care for me?”
“No,” Dupree said quickly. “Everything will be as you wish. I can still get the Wind Dancer for you. I know who has it.”
“Jean Marc Andreas,” Anne Dupree said caustically. “And how do you intend to wrest it from him? While you’ve been away Marat has been murdered and you have no patron, no power. Are you to go begging Danton or Robespierre for a place?”
“I went to Danton at his home and he refused me,” Dupree admitted. “He said he had no use for murderers.”
“Yet he had use for you before you went to Spain. I told you no one would be able to bear the sight of you with your twisted bones.”
“But there’s still hope. When I managed to escape from Spain I went first to Marseilles and asked questions.” Dupree’s words tumbled one after the other in his effort to convince her. “Andreas has a cousin, Catherine Vasaro, for whom he has a fondness. She may even be the girl in the locket. There has to be some connection between Juliette de Clement and Andreas.”
“You told me the girl in the locket was a princess.”
He had forgotten he had told her that falsehood. “I thought she was a princess but perhaps—”
“You lied to me.”
“No,” he said desperately. “I thought she was a princess. I only said—”
“Never mind.” His mother’s gaze narrowed on his face. “How will you use the Vasaro girl?”
“I’ll send her a message that I have Jean Marc Andreas captive and she must come herself to ransom him.”
“What if she ignores the message?”
“She won’t.” Dupree tried to sound confident. “She’ll come. And then I’ll have her.”
“And you’ll use her to make Andreas give you the Wind Dancer?”
Dupree nodded quickly.
“I don’t like it.” She frowned. “It’s a plan based on sentiment.”
She had identified Dupree’s own worst fears, but he had to persuade her he could be successful. “She’s only a foolish girl. Sentiment is common in women of—” He stopped as she turned her cold gray eyes on him. “Not you. But some women don’t realize how stupid it is to let sentiment rule them.”
“And Andreas? From what you’ve told me, I’d say he’s not a man of sentiment.”
“I tell you he has a fondness for her.”
“You have no cunning.” Anne Dupree rose to her feet with a swish of lavender taffeta. “I thought I’d taught you better. Forget this plan and go to Paris and set watch over Andreas. All men have secrets—and there might be something we can learn about this one that will profit us. It’s better than trusting to sentiment. You’ll leave at once.”
“I thought to stay here for a few days and rest,” Dupree stammered. “I’m not well. The bullet is still lodged in my body and at night I get the fever.” It was the truth but not the reason he wished to stay. It had been too long since he had seen her.
“You wish to rest? Certainly.” She smiled at him. “But you cannot expect to sleep in any of my nice clean beds. You’ve been very naughty. You failed me, Raoul. You didn’t bring me the Wind Dancer and you lied to me about the princess. You know the place for naughty little boys.”
“No!” Dupree got up as quickly as possible. “I’ll go at once to Paris. You’re right, I should watch Andreas.”
“I doubt you need worry that anyone will recognize you.” Anne Dupree made a delicate moue. “But be cautious, nevertheless. This is your last chance, Raoul. I shall not be so indulgent again.”
He grabbed his hat from the table. “I’ll not fail you.” He moved awkwardly toward the door, dragging his left leg behind him. “I’ll get it. I’ll give you the Wind Dancer.”
Anne Dupree walked to the mirror and patted the heart-shaped patch at the corner of her mouth. “That’s a good boy,” she said absently. “Oh, and take the locket from the jewel case in my chamber. You might have use for it, if you decide to involve the Vasaro girl in some way.”
“You wouldn’t mind?”
“The locket has no value now.” She inclined her head to stare at her son. “Because it’s not worthy of me, is it?”
She was not going to forgive him, he thought in panic. She might never forgive him again unless he brought her the Wind Dancer. The Wind Dancer had the power to give his mother everything she had always wanted. It would make her a queen greater than the Bourbon bitch they’d beheaded last week.
“No, it’s not worthy,” he mumbled as he opened the door. “I’m sorry, Mother. Please … I’ll bring you the Wind Dancer. I’ll bring it …”
He limped from the room, pausing just outside the door to try to suppress waves of nausea. Close. It had been so close. What if she had discarded him? He was nothing without his duty to her.
A sudden thought chilled him. If he gave his mother the Wind Dancer, she would no longer need him. No, he must not let such a thing happen.
The hunger raked at his soul. She had sent him away again. The hunger must be fed.
Camille. He would go to Camille and she would feed the hunger.
“The eyes are difficult.” Juliette added a little more blue to her brush. “He has such expressive eyes, doesn’t he? So much wonder …”
Catherine looked over her shoulder at the portrait of Michel standing in a field of flowers. “But I think you’ve caught it.” She sat down on the grass and linked her arms about her legs as she gazed thoughtfully at the pickers working at the bottom of the hill. “You’ve made good progress on it.”
“It’s truly a wonder. I can’t persuade the little Gypsy to pose for me for more than five minutes at a time.” She tilted her head. “It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done. It’s worthy of a gallery showing.” Her lips twisted. “Not that I’ll ever know that pleasure.”
“Why not?”
“Even in this splendid new republic, women’s artistic efforts aren’t considered worthy of public display.”
Catherine shook her head. “But it’s wonderful.”
“That makes no difference, I could have the talent of a Fragonard or Jacques-Louis David and still not be allowed to be hung next to the most amateurish of male daubers. It’s not fair, but that’s the way of life.” She shrugged. “Oh, well, I know it’s good.”
“Are you almost finished?”
“Just a few more touches and the signature.” Juliette wiped her perspiring brow with her sleeve. “I notice Michel’s been spending a good deal of time with Philippe.”
Catherine nodded as she picked a blade
of grass and chewed on it. “Philippe’s tried very hard to become friends with Michel since he returned from Marseilles.”
“Have you forgiven him?”
“Forgiven him for being Philippe?” She shrugged. “It isn’t my place to forgive him. It’s Michel’s. And Michel sees nothing to forgive.”
“But you can’t view him in the same fashion?”
“No, but we both love Vasaro.”
“I don’t like it,” Juliette said flatly. “If you keep on in this vein, you’ll end up by marrying the peacock.”
Catherine looked down at the ground. “It’s … a possibility.” Catherine added, “Not soon. But I must have a daughter for Vasaro at some time.”
Juliette shook her head. “You deserve more.”
“Philippe is a cheerful companion, he works hard—”
“And he’s certainly proven he can father any number of progeny.”
Catherine smothered a smile. “Only you would say something so outrageous.” Her smile faded. “I need someone besides Michel. I’m … lonely, Juliette.”
Juliette was silent for a moment before glancing over the top of her easel at Catherine. “Then send for François.”
Catherine stiffened. “François?”
“Why won’t you talk about François, Catherine? I’ve told you what forced him to make the decision at the abbey and I think you understand.”
“I don’t wish to speak of François. I know you have a great admiration for him but—”
“You refuse to forgive him when you’ve obviously forgiven Philippe. Even after I told you why it was necessary he withhold his help at the abbey, you still won’t talk about him.” Juliette looked down at the painting. “I’ve been thinking about it and I believe I know why you can’t forgive him.”
“Juliette, I don’t wish—”
“Because you love him. You don’t love Philippe, so it’s easy to forgive his faults.” She shook her head. “Mother of God, at the abbey François didn’t even know you. How could he betray you?”
Catherine stood up and jerkily brushed the grass from her gown. “You know nothing of how I feel.”
“Who could know you better? I don’t understand why …” Juliette frowned as she stared thoughtfully at Catherine. “Or perhaps it’s not really a question of forgiveness at all. Did he refuse to stay with you here at Vasaro? Couldn’t you hold him here in your Eden?”