This was a distraction, a misdirection, a delaying tactic. The man they’d been following had paid these boys to attack or lied to them.
Maybe he could salvage something. He said, “Soho Square. I’ll meet you or send a message. Get some men.” Then he took off after Vérité.
Eleven
Every man contains a multitude of men.
Mr. Smith had long ago abandoned any particular name for himself. A warrior of the Revolution needed no name. “Smith” would do as well as any for the few days he remained in London. He arrived at the inn through various and secret ways, circling in as a spider spirals in upon his web.
The inn made the right noises. The innkeeper scolded one of the maids in the front hall. The men in the taproom murmured and coughed. The clank from the kitchen was just right. Not too loud. Not a dangerous silence.
Upstairs he checked the hall from end to end, drew his pistol, then pushed open the door of the private parlor. He stood in the doorway and flicked his gaze side to side across the room. Two of his men sat at the table. So did the tiresome woman he’d brought from France.
Everything was as expected. He uncocked his pistol and set it on the mantelpiece, ready and loaded. The woman began complaining loudly even before he dropped his hat on the back of a chair and pulled his coat off to lay over the seat.
“Where have you been?” She had a peculiarly piercing voice and a provincial accent. “What is the use of sending me for a drive when I am not allowed to go into any stores or talk to anyone? Why didn’t you come with me? Why didn’t you tell me you’d be gone this long?” There was more in that vein.
She had not seen him on Fleet Street when she passed in the carriage. Good. It saved explanations.
He nodded at the end of each sentence she said and caught the eye of Jacques, his second-in-command.
“Everything proceeds.” Jacques tilted his bowl and wiped it round and round with a piece of bread. “No one has shown interest in us.”
“Good.” An approving nod to Jacques. At the same time, he expended a reassuring smile upon the woman Camille. He was patient with women. They required that homage to their weakness. To Jacques he said, “The work on the carriage?”
Jacques chose his words. “They have almost finished . . . preparing it. The shipment from Thompson will arrive . . . in the proper place, tomorrow.”
“Hugues is on guard?” He went to the window and pulled the curtain back an inch and looked down into the ugly, cluttered courtyard below. There was no reason to expect trouble, but he was alive today, when many men wanted him dead, because he took precautions.
Gaspard dunked bread in his soup and took a sopping bite. “I will relieve him when I have eaten.” They were good republicans, his men. No complaints from them about the inn’s swill. They ate to give the body sufficient fuel to serve the cause. “I’ve hired the wagon we—”
“I am mad with boredom.” The tiresome, inevitable woman rose from her chair and flounced across to confront him. “Since we returned from the carriage ride, Jacques has stopped me from going outside. Not even for one little walk.”
You break into a conversation where men speak of serious matters. “They obey my orders. I regret if they have been impolite.”
“You said there would be theater in London. Opera. Music. You said there were shops more beautiful than anything in Lyon and I would see them all. Instead, I cannot go to the pastry shop twenty paces down the street.”
He’d promised any number of things. “It is not possible today. Perhaps tomorrow.”
“I am sick of this tomorrow and that tomorrow and I am sick of this place. You bring me racing along your foul English roads until I am bruised. Now you ignore me. I stay here and stay here, day after day, and you do not take me to my family.” She stamped her foot like a child. “You promised to take me to my aunts.”
His men ate in silence. Gaspard, who lacked Jacques’ intelligence, smiled derisively around his bread.
“My poor Marie-Claire. You have been very brave for so long. So strong through all these difficulties.” He flattered her back to her place at the table. “I have explained the danger. Your enemies are everywhere. You must be wise as the serpent.”
She was wise as a pig’s intestine.
Once this fool of a woman had been Camille Besançon. Now she was Marie-Claire Gresset, pampered foster daughter of the watchmaker Gresset, a man of some importance in Lyon. She had escaped the fate of her family, rescued by one of the smugglers and given to the Gressets to take the place of a daughter who’d died.
He’d known of her survival. Of course he’d known. In those days he gave the execution order for every man, woman, and child who died to allow the placement of Cachés. He chose each death as carefully as a jeweler selects the next pearl in a necklace.
It had seemed profitable to let a member of the Council of Lyon cheat the Revolution and effect his petty rescue. Who knew when he might want to destroy Gresset?
“You leave me all day with servants,” the woman whined, as all women whine. “Ill-bred, impolite, poorly trained servants who ignore my orders. I don’t even have a maid.”
Useless herself, she wanted another parasite to wait upon her. “I will see to it,” he murmured. “A day or two and all will be arranged.”
“Not a day or two. Now! And tell these dolts to obey my orders.”
As if men would leap to do the bidding of a woman. It wasn’t even the blind arrogance of the aristocracy. Marie-Claire Gresset had almost forgotten she’d ever been a Besançon. She was petite bourgeoisie now, with all the pushing, busy vulgarity of the class. The aristocrat lived inside her only as a residue of resentment, a certainty that she should be better treated than she was.
Even now, she believed no one would dare to hurt her.
He patted her shoulder. Like all women, she was gentled with a few strokes. “I wish only to keep you safe. Be patient.”
“I am done being patient. This is intolerable. You keep me prisoner in this hovel where the coffee is pigswill.”
“I share your annoyance. These pigs of Englishmen should not be allowed in the kitchen. They know nothing of the art of cooking. Let me send for tea.”
“The tea is worse. You complete all your tiresome business. You hire wagons. You buy horses. You receive shipments. But you never take me to my aunts!”
“Soon.” He gave no sign of impatience. He did not resent the expenditure of time necessary to soothe this idiot to complacency. “I promise you, by this time next week you will be in the beautiful chateau of your ancestors. I swear it. You will take your place as Lady Camille de Leylands. You will attend the opera wearing the Leyland jewels. There is a parure of rubies red as blood and every stone bigger than your thumbnail.”
Ridiculous fairy tales for a gullible, greedy child. He spun the pretty story for her because it was easier to deal with a docile woman than to keep her trussed in a closet. Either way, she would serve her purpose.
She said, “Now. Today. Take me to my aunts now!”
“Soon. They are ready to alter their will in your favor, but the impostor who has stolen your place is very clever. Very dangerous. We must meet with them in secret. We must proceed carefully.” He constructed a gentle smile. “In a very few days we will celebrate your return to your proper place.”
Under the blade. That is your proper place. We guillotined your kind.
He made more murmurs and vague promises. Then he motioned Gaspard to engage her in conversation and retreated across the room to the peace to be found on the rough benches that flanked the hearth.
Her complaint continued like dripping water and was no more important. Sensible discussion with Jacques became possible. “Édouard has not returned?”