As we rattled toward the Rue Tremoulins, Jamie was silent, staring out the window of the coach as the stiff fingers of his right hand tapped against his thigh.
“A place where names are seldom named in blessing,” he murmured as the coach turned into the Rue Gamboge. “What might that be, I wonder?”
I remembered the Cabbalistic signs on Raymond’s cabinet, and a small shiver raised the hairs on my forearms. I remembered Marguerite’s gossip about the Comte St. Germain, and Madame de Ramage’s warning. I told Jamie about them, and what Raymond had said.
“He may regard it as paint and window dressing,” I finished, “but plainly he knows people who don’t, or who is he looking to keep out of his cabinet?”
Jamie nodded. “Aye. I’ve heard a bit—only a bit—about such goings-on around the Court. I paid no attention at the time, thinking it only silliness, but now I’ll find out a bit more.” He laughed, suddenly, and drew me close to his side. “I’ll set Murtagh to follow the Comte St. Germain. That’ll give the Comte a real demon to play with.”
17
POSSESSION
Murtagh was duly set to watch the comings and goings of the Comte St. Germain, but beyond reporting that the Comte entertained a remarkable number of persons in his home—of both sexes and all classes—detected nothing particularly mysterious. The Comte did have one visitor of note, though—Charles Stuart, who came one afternoon, stayed for an hour, and left.
Charles had begun to require Jamie’s company more frequently on his expeditions through the taverns and low places of the city. I personally thought this had more to do with Jules de La Tour de Rohan’s party, held to celebrate the announcement of his wife’s pregnancy, than it did with any sinister influence of the Comte’s.
These expeditions sometimes lasted well into the night, and I became accustomed to going to bed without Jamie, waking when he crawled in beside me, his body chilled with walking through the evening fog, and the smell of tobacco smoke and liquor clinging to his hair and skin.
“He’s so distraught about that woman that I dinna think he even remembers he’s the heir to the thrones of Scotland and England,” Jamie said, returning from one of these expeditions.
“Goodness, he must be upset,” I said, sarcastically. “Let’s hope he stays that way.”
A week later, though, I woke to the cold gray light of dawn to find the bed beside me still vacant, the coverlet flat and undisturbed.
“Is milord Broch Tuarach in his study?” I leaned over the banister in my nightgown, startling Magnus, who was passing through the lower hall. Perhaps Jamie had chosen to sleep on the sofa in the study, so as not to disturb me.
“No, milady,” he answered, staring up at me. “I came to unbolt the front door, and found that it had never been bolted. Milord did not come home last night.”
I sat down heavily on the top step. I must have looked rather alarming, because the elderly butler nearly sprinted up the stairs to me.
“Madame,” he said, anxiously chafing one of my hands. “Madame, are you all right?”
“I’ve been better, but it isn’t important. Magnus, send one of the footmen to Prince Charles’s house in Montmartre at once. Have him see if my husband is there.”
“At once, milady. And I will send Marguerite up to attend you, as well.” He turned and hurried down the stairs, the soft felt slippers he wore for his morning duties making a soft, shushing noise on the polished wood.
“And Murtagh!” I called after Magnus’s departing back. “My husband’s kinsman. Bring him to me, please!” The first thought that had sprung into my mind was that Jamie had perhaps stayed the night at Charles’s villa; the second, that something had happened to him, whether by accident or by someone’s deliberate intent.
“Where is he?” Murtagh’s cracked voice spoke at the foot of the stair. He had obviously just awakened; his face was creased from whatever he had been lying on, and there were bits of straw in the folds of his ratty shirt.
“How should I know?” I snapped. Murtagh always looked as though he suspected everyone of something, and being rudely wakened had not improved his habitual scowl. The sight of him was nonetheless reassuring; if anything rough was in the offing, Murtagh looked the person to be dealing with it.
“He went out with Prince Charles last night, and didn’t come back. That’s all I know.” I pulled myself up by the banister railing and smoothed down the silk folds of my nightgown. The fires had been lit, but hadn’t had time to warm the house, and I was shivering.
Murtagh rubbed a hand over his face to assist thought.
“Mphm. Has someone gone to Montmartre?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll wait ’til they come back with word. If Jamie’s there, well and good. If he isn’t, mayhap they’ll know when he parted company with His Highness, and where.”
“And what if they’re both gone? What if the Prince didn’t come home either?” I asked. If there were Jacobites in Paris, there were also those who opposed the restoration of the Stuart line. And while assassinating Charles Stuart might not assure the failure of a potential Scottish Rising—he did, after all, have a younger brother, Henry—it might go some way toward damping James’s enthusiasm for such a venture—if he had any to start with, I thought distractedly.
I remembered vividly the story Jamie had told me, of the attempt on his life during which he had met Fergus. Street assassinations were far from uncommon, and there were gangs of ruffians who hunted the Paris streets after dark.
“You’d best go dress yourself, lassie,” Murtagh remarked. “I can see the gooseflesh from here.”
“Oh! Yes, I suppose so.” I glanced down at my arms; I had been hugging myself as suppositions raced through my mind, but to little effect; my teeth were beginning to chatter.
“Madame! You will give yourself a chill, surely!” Marguerite came stumping rapidly up the stairs, and I allowed her to shoo me into the bedroom, glancing back to see Murtagh below, carefully examining the point of his dirk before ramming it home in its sheath.
“You should be in bed, Madame!” Marguerite scolded. “It isn’t good for the child, for you to let yourself be chilled like that. I will fetch a warming pan at once; where is your nightrobe? Get into it at once, yes, that’s right…” I shrugged the heavy woolen nightrobe over the thin silk of my nightgown, but ignored Marguerite’s clucking to go to the window and open the shutters.
The street outside was beginning to glow as the rising sun struck the upper facades of the stone houses along the Rue Tremoulins. There was a good deal of activity on the street, early as it was; maids and footmen engaged in scrubbing steps or polishing brass gate-fittings, barrowmen selling fruit, vegetables, and fresh seafood, crying their wares along the street, and the cooks of the great houses popping up from their basement doors like so many jinni, summoned by the cries of the barrowmen. A delivery cart loaded with coal clopped slowly along the street, pulled by an elderly horse who looked as though he would much rather be in his stable. But no sign of Jamie.
I at last allowed an anxious Marguerite to persuade me into bed, for the sake of warmth, but couldn’t go back to sleep. Every sound from below brought me to the alert, hoping that each footstep on the pavement outside would be followed by Jamie’s voice in the hall below. The face of the Comte St. Germain kept coming between me and sleep. Alone among the French nobility, he had some connection with Charles Stuart. He had, in all likelihood, been behind the earlier attempt on Jamie’s life…and on mine. He was known to have unsavory associations. Was it possible that he had arranged to have both Charles and Jamie removed? Whether his purposes were political or personal made little difference, at this point.
When at last the sound of steps below did come, I was so occupied with visions of Jamie lying in a gutter with his throat cut, that I didn’t realize he was home until the bedroom door opened.
“Jamie!” I sat up in bed with a cry of joy.
He smiled at me, then yawned immensely, making
no effort to cover his mouth. I could see a goodly distance down his throat, and observed with relief that it wasn’t cut. On the other hand, he looked distinctly the worse for wear. He lay down on the bed next to me and stretched, long and rackingly, then settled with a half-contented groan.
“What,” I demanded, “happened to you?”
He opened one red-rimmed eye.
“I need a bath,” he said, and closed it again.
I leaned toward him and sniffed delicately. The nose detected the usual smoky smell of closed rooms and damp wool, underlying a truly remarkable combination of alcoholic stenches—ale, wine, whisky, and brandy—which matched the variety of stains on his shirt. And forming a high note to the mixture, a horrible cheap cologne, of a particularly penetrating and noxious pungency.
“You do,” I agreed. I scrambled out of bed and leaning out into the corridor, shouted for Marguerite, sending her on arrival for a hip bath and sufficient water to fill it. As a parting gift from Brother Ambrose, I had several cakes of a fine-milled hard soap, made with attar of roses, and told her to fetch those, as well.
As the maid set about the tedious business of bringing up the huge copper bath-cans, I turned my attention to the hulk on the bed.
I stripped off his shoes and stockings, then loosening the buckle of his kilt, I flipped it open. His hands went reflexively to his crotch, but my eyes were focused elsewhere.
“What,” I said again, “happened to you?”
Several long scratches marked his thighs, angry red welts against the pale skin. And high on the inside of one leg was what could be nothing other than a bite; the toothmarks were plainly visible.
The maid, pouring hot water, cast an interested eye at the evidence and thought fit to put in her tuppence at this delicate moment.
“Un petit chien?” she asked. A little dog? Or something else. While I was far from fluent in the idiom of the times, I had learned that les petits chiens often walked the street on two legs with painted faces.
“Out,” I said briefly in French, with a Head Matron intonation. The maid picked up the cans and left the room, pouting slightly. I turned back to Jamie, who opened one eye, and after a glance at my face, closed it again.
“Well?” I asked.
Instead of answering, he shuddered. After a moment, he sat up and rubbed his hands over his face, the stubble making a rasping noise. He cocked one ruddy eyebrow interrogatively. “I wouldna suppose a gently reared young lady such as yourself would be familiar wi’ an alternate meaning for the term soixante-neuf?”
“I’ve heard the term,” I said, folding my arms across my chest and regarding him with a certain amount of suspicion. “And may I ask just where you encountered that particular interesting number?”
“It was suggested to me—with some force—as a desirable activity by a lady I happened to meet last night.”
“Was that by any chance the lady who bit you in the thigh?”
He glanced down and rubbed the mark meditatively.
“Mm, no. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t. That lady seemed preoccupied wi’ rather lower numbers. I think she meant to settle for the six, and the nine could go hang.”
“Jamie,” I said, tapping my foot in a marked manner, “where have you been all night?”
He scooped up a handful of water from the basin and splashed it over his face, letting the rivulets run down among the dark red hairs on his chest.
“Mm,” he said, blinking drops from his thick lashes, “well, let me see. First there was supper at a tavern. We met Glengarry and Millefleurs there.” Monsieur Millefleurs was a Parisian banker, while Glengarry was one of the younger Jacobites, chief of one sept of the MacDonell clan. A visitor in Paris, rather than a resident, he had been much in Charles’s company lately, by Jamie’s report. “And after supper, we went to the Duc di Castellotti’s, for cards.”
“And then?” I asked.
A tavern, apparently. And then another tavern. And then an establishment which appeared to share some of the characteristics of a tavern, but was embellished by the addition of several ladies of interesting appearance and even more interesting talents.
“Talents, eh?” I said, with a glance at the marks on his leg.
“God, they did it in public,” he said, with a reminiscent shudder. “Two of them, on the table. Right between the saddle of mutton and the boiled potatoes. With the quince jelly.”
“Mon dieu,” said the newly returned maid, setting down the fresh bathcan long enough to cross herself.
“You be quiet,” I said, scowling at her. I turned my attention back to my husband. “And then what?”
Then, apparently, the action had become somewhat more general, though still accomplished in fairly public fashion. With due regard to Marguerite’s sensibilities, Jamie waited until she had left for another round of water before elaborating further.
“…and then Castellotti took the fat one with red hair and the small blond one off to a corner, and—”
“And what were you doing all this time?” I broke in on the fascinating recitative.
“Watching,” he said, as though surprised. “It didna seem decent, but there wasna much choice about it, under the circumstances.”
I had been groping in his sporran as he talked, and now fished out not only a small purse, but a wide metal ring, embellished with a coat of arms. I tried it curiously on a finger; it was much larger than any normal ring, and hung like a quoit on a stick.
“Whoever does this belong to?” I asked, holding it out. “It looks like the Duc di Castellotti’s coat of arms, but whoever it belongs to must have fingers like sausages.” Castellotti was an etiolated Italian stringbean, with the pinched face of a man with chronic dyspepsia—no wonder, judging from Jamie’s story. Quince jelly, forsooth!
I glanced up to find Jamie blushing from navel to hairline.
“Er,” he said, taking an exaggerated interest in a mud stain on one knee, “it…doesna go on a man’s finger.”
“Then what…oh.” I looked at the circular object with renewed interest. “Goodness. I’ve heard of them before…”
“You have?” said Jamie, thoroughly scandalized.
“But I’ve never seen one. Does it fit you?” I reached out to try it. He clasped his hands reflexively over his private parts.
Marguerite, arriving with more water, assured him, “Ne vous en faîtes pas, Monsieur. J’en ai déjà vu un.” Don’t worry yourself, monsieur; I’ve already seen one.
Dividing a glare between me and the maid, he pulled a quilt across his lap.
“Bad enough to spend all night defending my virtue,” he remarked with some asperity, “without havin’ it subjected to comment in the morning.”
“Defending your virtue, hm?” I tossed the ring idly from hand to hand, catching it on opposing index fingers. “A gift, was it?” I asked, “or a loan?”
“A gift. Don’t do that, Sassenach,” he said, wincing. “It brings back memories.”
“Ah yes,” I said, eying him. “Now about those memories…”
“Not me!” he protested. “Surely ye dinna think I’d do such things? I’m a married man!”
“Monsieur Millefleurs isn’t married?”
“He’s not only married, he has two mistresses,” Jamie said. “But he’s French—that’s different.”
“The Duc di Castellotti isn’t French—he’s Italian.”
“But he’s a duke. That’s different, too.”
“Oh, it is, is it? I wonder if the Duchess thinks so.”
“Considering a few things the Duc claimed he learnt from the Duchess, I would imagine so. Isn’t that bath ready yet?”
Clutching the quilt about him, he lumbered from the bed to the steaming tub and stepped in. He dropped the quilt and lowered himself quickly, but not quite quickly enough.
“Enorme!” said the maid, crossing herself.
“C’est tout,” I said repressively. “Merci bien.” She dropped her eyes, blushed, and scuttled out.
As the door closed behind the maid, Jamie relaxed into the tub, high at the back to allow for lounging; the feeling of the times seemed to be that once having gone to the trouble of filling a bath, one might as well enjoy it. His stubbled face assumed an expression of bliss as he sank gradually lower into the steaming water, a flush of heat reddening his fair skin. His eyes were closed, and a faint mist of moisture gleamed across the high, broad cheekbones and shone in the hollows beneath his eyesockets.
“Soap?” he asked hopefully, opening his eyes.
“Yes, indeed.” I fetched a cake and handed it to him, then sat down on a stool alongside the bath. I watched for some time as he scrubbed industriously, fetching him a cloth and a pumice stone, with which he painstakingly rasped the soles of his feet and his elbows.
“Jamie,” I said at last.
“Aye?”
“I don’t mean to quarrel with your methods,” I said, “and we agreed that you might have to go to some lengths, but…did you really have to…”