“A pasteboard one,” clipped Jaouen. “The last thing we need is a fight. What are you waiting for? Go!”

When a man said “go” like that, people went.

Grabbing de Berry’s arm in both hands, Laura tugged. Caught off balance, the prince staggered, stumbling after her through the door to the dining room. Jaouen followed after them, grabbing the handle of the door. His eyes for a moment lit on Laura’s face, frankly mistrustful. She could see him frown.

“Your old friend’s life,” he said. “Remember.”

Was that a warning? Or a threat?

Then he shoved the door shut, plunging the room into darkness.


He knew he should have paid his governess a higher salary.

André’s eyes caught those of his governess as the door swung closed. She stared back, watchful, wary, giving nothing away. Damn. He wanted to shake her, to demand answers, to rattle her out of that impressive self-possession. Was she an agent of Delaroche? Or someone else? Or nothing more than what she said. A governess. A friend of Daubier.

He might not, thought André, with gallows humor, have to wait long to find out. If she wanted to hang them all, she could. All she had to do was cry out. It would be difficult explaining de Berry’s presence in Daubier’s studio. They might try to pass de Berry off as his cousin, but it was a threadbare deception at best. And even the taint of suspicion would be enough to damn them all.

He had told Cadoudal not to bring de Berry to France. Not yet. There were too many pieces still left to fall into place: key generals to be suborned, potential foes to be neutralized, an appointment at the palace to be procured. He had urged prudence, but hotter heads had prevailed, and now here they were, at the mercy of a governess who might or might not keep silent for the love of an old painter who had once been a friend to her parents.

Put that way, they hadn’t a hope in hell.

The guards were almost upon him. “—hate these late-night assignments,” one was saying companionably to the other. “The night was meant for sleep, not traipsing around the city after phantoms.”

“A phantom? But I thought they said it was an artist,” said the second man disingenuously. “Sir!”

Both men snapped to at the sight of Jaouen, who folded his arms across his chest and fixed them with a stern stare. He had learned more of theatre these past few years than any actor in the Comédie-Française.

He recognized the men as the same who had been sent to Cadoudal’s lodgings. The dim one was . . . Laclos. That was it. Laclos and Maugret. Neither was particularly bright, but dangerous, nonetheless. He would have to trust to the appearance of authority and the late hour to keep their suspicions at bay.

“You certainly took long enough.” André kept his back to the door to the dining room. He knew better than anyone the danger of the betraying glance. “Where were you?”

“We came as fast as we heard,” said Laclos quickly. “There was trouble on the bridge, an overturned cart—”

“Yes, yes,” said André curtly, dismissing the man’s excuses in a way that made clear just how much credence he gave it. André turned his attention to the other man. “What were your orders?”

Maugret’s wandering eyes snapped back to André. He noticed too much, this one. He had been looking about with frank curiosity. “To guard the chambers of the traitor Daubier, sir. To make sure no one else entered.”

“Well done,” said André, with a fine edge of sarcasm. “By now, half of Paris might have been in and out. Do you know how much time it takes to destroy evidence, Maugret?”

Maugret started to nod, then changed his mind and shook his head instead. “No, sir,” he said sulkily.

“Less time than you would think.” Almost as little time as it took to destroy a reputation. One false move, and it would be his head on the guillotine, Gabrielle and Pierre-André abandoned to the vagaries of an uncaring world. “You should have come more quickly.”

Had that been a noise from the dining room?

Laclos hung his head. “That cart . . .”

His partner stepped in. “We weren’t told you would be here, sir.”

André stared him down, letting him know what he thought of that piece of impertinence. “Do you always expect to be apprised of your superiors’ comings and goings?” Having made his point, he deliberately adopted a more matter-of-fact tone. “I only arrived here a few moments before you. The premises appear to be unspoiled.” André allowed his lip to curl. “Although, in these conditions, it is hard to tell.”

Laclos obediently guffawed. His laugh turned into an embarrassed cough as he saw that André wasn’t laughing and neither was his partner. Maugret cast him a disgusted look.

“We will have our work cut out for us, searching through this sty,” said André, making a show of pacing the parameters of the far end of the room. “Monsieur Delaroche should have sent more people.”

“He asked for them, sir,” said Laclos eagerly, “but everyone else was on other assignments. Or at home,” he added wistfully.

So it was Delaroche who had sent them. Had Delaroche reported to Fouché yet? Or to the Prefecture? Or was he biding his time, hoping for more sensational discoveries before he alerted his superiors?

A prince of the blood would be a coup indeed.

He had to get de Berry and the governess out of the way. If he could persuade Laclos and Maugret to remain out front, he could shoo the others down the back stairs. De Berry might not be a genius of subtlety, but he could be trusted to get Mlle. Griscogne back to the Hôtel de Bac and to keep watch on her while there. If she was an agent of Delaroche, they couldn’t risk giving her the chance to get a message out.

André’s mind shied away from the possibility. Why was it so hard for him to believe that she was Delaroche’s creature? Because her mother wrote love poetry? Because he admired her nerve? Because she had seemed to him, for a moment, like a little girl lost in the woods, trying to keep the wolves at bay?

Sentiment had no place in espionage, at least not if one hoped to survive. All the evidence said she was danger. And danger meant Delaroche.

André surveyed the two constables. “The traitor Daubier undoubtedly has confederates,” he said, thinking quickly. “As soon as they hear of his plight, they’ll be here, eager to destroy the evidence. Maugret!”—he pointed to the more difficult of the two—“I want you to go to the square. Find someplace where you can see the front entrance. Take note of anyone who approaches. As for you, Laclos, station yourself hard by the door. Make sure you are well hidden. Be prepared to take into custody anyone who tries to enter.”

Laclos nodded eagerly. “No one will get past.”

André clapped him on the shoulder. “Good man. As for me, I will wait here. With the candles out,” he added. “They won’t come if they think someone is here.”

And it would be easier to smuggle de Berry and Mlle. Griscogne out without the candlelight silhouetting them against the windows.

“If we lay our trap properly,” André declared grandiloquently, “we will catch our mice.”

It was a perfectly ridiculous statement, worthy of Delaroche at his best, but it appeared to make sense, even to the skeptical Maugret.

“Yes, sir,” the man said.

André felt a weakening flush of relief. He had them convinced, he could tell. They weren’t out of the woods yet, but they had a shot. If he could just get de Berry to move quickly and quietly . . . If Mlle. Griscogne didn’t give them away . . . André nodded brusquely to Laclos and Maugret, motioning them on their way, giving no sign of the turmoil of thought going on beneath his stern countenance.

A crash resonated from the other room. Porcelain, splintering.

André could feel it vibrating throughout his body, as though it were his own bones being dashed to pieces rather than one of Daubier’s Chinese vases.

Maugret, the more acute of the two, jerked sharply towards the dining-room door. “What was that?”

“Something breaking?” volunteered Laclos.

Maugret cast Laclos a look of contempt. “It came from there, sir,” he said to André, pointing to the door. “Shall I go in?”

Too bad that sword on the wall was pasteboard. It might come down to that fight that de Berry had so eagerly desired. André cursed, silently and violently. He cursed de Berry for foolishness; Cadoudal for overreaching; and himself for too many reasons to count, although the primary one involved a woman with a penchant for gray.

André flung up a hand, halting the constable’s progress. “Maugret!” The other man stopped abruptly. André lowered his voice. “There is a back door, if I recall. Whoever it is might try to escape out back. I want you to—”

He never finished his order. The dining-room door swung open.

At first, all he saw was the candle, a small blaze of light against the darkness of the room beyond. It flickered off the contours of a female form, outlined the hollows of a collarbone, the curve of a shoulder.

There was a woman in the doorway, a red velvet wrap tossed carelessly over her bare shoulders. Her hair fell in long waves down her shoulders, tousled as though she had just come from bed. Her hair was dark and rough, swallowing the light rather than reflecting it. The fine white lawn of a chemise showed beneath the red velvet wrap. The fabric ended just below her calves, revealing a pair of decidedly shapely ankles.

Lifting a hand to shield her eyes from the light of her own candle, she took a step forward on slender, bare feet, blinking sleepily.

“Antoine?” she said.

Chapter 19