20
LA DAME BLANCHE
The dawn had broadened into day by the time we had changed our clothes, and breakfast was on its way up the stairs from the kitchen.
“What I want to know,” I said, pouring out the chocolate, “is who in bloody hell is La Dame Blanche?”
“La Dame Blanche?” Magnus, leaning over my shoulder with a basket of hot bread, started so abruptly that one of the rolls fell out of the basket. I fielded it neatly and turned round to look up at the butler, who was looking rather shaken.
“Yes, that’s right,” I said. “You’ve heard the name, Magnus?”
“Why, yes, milady,” the old man answered. “La Dame Blanche is une sorcière.”
“A sorceress?” I said incredulously.
Magnus shrugged, tucking in the napkin around the rolls with excessive care, not looking at me.
“The White Lady,” he murmured. “She is called a wisewoman, a healer. And yet … she sees to the center of a man, and can turn his soul to ashes, if evil be found there.” He bobbed his head, turned, and shuffled off hastily in the direction of the kitchen. I saw his elbow bob, and realized that he was crossing himself as he went.
“Jesus H. Christ,” I said, turning back to Jamie. “Did you ever hear of La Dame Blanche?”
“Um? Oh? Oh, aye, I’ve … heard the stories.” Jamie’s eyes were hidden by long auburn lashes as he buried his nose in his cup of chocolate, but the blush on his cheeks was too deep to be put down to the heat of the rising steam.
I leaned back in my chair, crossed my arms, and regarded him narrowly.
“Oh, you have?” I said. “Would it surprise you to hear that the men who attacked Mary and me last night referred to me as La Dame Blanche?”
“They did?” He looked up quickly at that, startled.
I nodded. “They took one look at me in the light, shouted ‘La Dame Blanche,’ and then ran off as though they’d just noticed I had plague.”
Jamie took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The red color was fading from his face, leaving it pale as the white china plate before him.
“God in heaven,” he said, half to himself. “God … in … heaven!”
I leaned across the table and took the cup from his hand.
“Would you like to tell me just what you know about La Dame Blanche?” I suggested gently.
“Well …” He hesitated, but then looked at me sheepishly. “It’s only … I told Glengarry that you were La Dame Blanche.”
“You told Glengarry what?” I choked on the bite of roll I had taken. Jamie pounded me helpfully on the back.
“Well, it was Glengarry and Castellotti, was what it was,” he said defensively. “I mean, playing at cards and dice is one thing, but they wouldna leave it at that. And they thought it verra funny that I’d wish to be faithful to my wife. They said … well, they said a number of things, and I … I got rather tired of it.” He looked away, the tips of his ears burning.
“Mm,” I said, sipping tea. Having heard Castellotti’s tongue in action, I could imagine the sort of merciless teasing Jamie had taken.
He drained his own cup at one swallow, then occupied himself with carefully refilling it, keeping his eyes fixed on the pot to avoid meeting mine. “But I couldna just walk out and leave them, either, could I?” he demanded. “I had to stay with His Highness through the evening, and it would do no good to have him thinkin’ me unmanly.”
“So you told them I was La Dame Blanche,” I said, trying hard to keep any hint of laughter out of my voice. “And if you tried any funny business with ladies of the evening, I’d shrivel your private parts.”
“Er, well …”
“My God, they believed it?” I could feel my own face flushing as hotly as Jamie’s, with the effort to control myself.
“I was verra convincing about it,” he said, one corner of his mouth beginning to twitch. “Swore them all to secrecy on their mothers’ lives.”
“And how much did you all have to drink before this?”
“Oh, a fair bit. I waited ’til the fourth bottle.”
I gave up the struggle and burst out laughing.
“Oh, Jamie!” I said. “You darling!” I leaned over and kissed his furiously blushing cheek.
“Well,” he said awkwardly, slathering butter over a chunk of bread. “It was the best I could think of. And they did stop pushing trollops into my arms.”
“Good,” I said. I took the bread from him, added honey, and gave it back.
“I can hardly complain about it,” I observed. “Since in addition to guarding your virtue, it seems to have kept me from being raped.”
“Aye, thank God.” He set down the roll and grasped my hand. “Christ, if anything had happened to you, Sassenach, I’d—”
“Yes,” I interrupted, “but if the men who attacked us knew I was supposed to be La Dame Blanche …”
“Aye, Sassenach.” He nodded down at me. “It canna have been either Glengarry nor Castellotti, for they were with me at the house where Fergus came to fetch me when you were attacked. But it must have been someone they told of it.”
I couldn’t repress a slight shiver at the memory of the white mask and the mocking voice behind it.
With a sigh, he let go of my hand. “Which means, I suppose, that I’d best go and see Glengarry, and find out just how many people he’s been regaling wi’ tales of my married life.” He rubbed a hand through his hair in exasperation. “And then I must go call on His Highness, and find out what in hell he means by this arrangement with the Comte St. Germain.”
“I suppose so,” I said thoughtfully, “though knowing Glengarry, he’s probably told half of Paris by now. I have some calls to make this afternoon, myself.”
“Oh, aye? And who are you going to call upon, Sassenach?” he asked, eyeing me narrowly. I took a deep breath, bracing myself at the thought of the ordeal that lay ahead.
“First, on Master Raymond,” I said. “And then, on Mary Hawkins.”
“Lavender, perhaps?” Raymond stood on tiptoe to take a jar from the shelf. “Not for application, but the aroma is soothing; it calms the nerves.”
“Well, that depends on whose nerves are involved,” I said, recalling Jamie’s reaction to the scent of lavender. It was the scent Jack Randall had favored, and Jamie found exposure to the herb’s perfume anything but soothing. “In this case, though, it might help. Do no harm, at any rate.”
“Do no harm,” he quoted thoughtfully. “A very sound principle.”
“That’s the first bit of the Hippocratic Oath, you know,” I said, watching him as he bent to rummage in his drawers and bins. “The oath a physician swears. ‘First, do no harm.’ ”
“Ah? And have you sworn this oath yourself, madonna?” The bright, amphibious eyes blinked at me over the edge of the high counter.
I felt myself flushing before that unblinking gaze.
“Er, well, no. Not actually. I’m not a real physician. Not yet.” I couldn’t have said what made me add that last sentence.
“No? Yet you are seeking to mend that which a ‘real’ physician would never try, knowing that a lost maidenhead is not restorable.” His irony was evident.
“Oh, isn’t it?” I answered dryly. Fergus had, with encouragement, told me quite a bit about the “ladies” at Madame Elise’s house. “What’s that bit with the shoat’s bladder full of chicken blood, hm? Or do you claim that things like that fall into an apothecary’s realm of competence, but not a physician’s?”
He had no eyebrows to speak of, but the heavy shelf of his forehead lifted slightly when he was amused.
“And who is harmed by that, madonna? Surely not the seller. Not the buyer, either—he is likely to get more enjoyment for his money than the purchaser of the genuine article. Not even the maidenhead itself is harmed! Surely a very moral and Hippocratic endeavor, which any physician might be pleased to assist?”
I laughed. “And I expect you know more than a few who do?” I said. “I’ll take the matter up with the next Medical Review Board I see. In the meantime, short of manufactured miracles, what can we do in the present case?”
“Mm.” He laid out a gauze square on the counter and poured a handful of finely shredded dried leaves into the center of it. A sharp, pleasant tang rose from the small heap of grayish-green vegetation.
“This is Saracen’s consound,” he said, skilfully folding the gauze into a tidy square with the ends tucked in. “Good for soothing irritated skin, minor lacerations, and sores of the privy parts. Useful, I think?”
“Yes, indeed,” I said, a little grimly. “As an infusion or a decoction?”
“Infusion. Warm, probably, under the circumstances.” He turned to another shelf and abstracted one of the large white jars of painted porcelain. This one said CHELIDONIUM on the side.
“For the inducement of sleep,” he explained. His lipless mouth stretched back at the corners. “I think perhaps you had better avoid the use of the opium-poppy derivatives; this particular patient appears to have an unpredictable response to them.”
“Heard all about it already, have you?” I said resignedly. I could hardly have hoped he hadn’t. I was well aware that information was one of the more important commodities he sold; consequently the little shop was a nexus for gossip from dozens of sources, from street vendors to gentlemen of the Royal Bedchamber.
“From three separate sources,” Raymond replied. He glanced out the window, craning his neck to see the huge horloge that hung from the wall of the building near the corner. “And it’s barely two o’clock. I expect I will hear several more versions of the events at your dinner before nightfall.” The wide, gummy mouth opened, and a soft chuckle emerged. “I particularly liked the version in which your husband challenged General d’Arbanville to a duel in the street, while you more pragmatically offered Monsieur le Comte the enjoyment of the unconscious girl’s body, if he would refrain from calling the King’s Guard.”
“Mmphm,” I said, sounding self-consciously Scottish. “Have you any particular interest in knowing what actually did happen?”
The horned-poppy tonic, a pale amber in the afternoon sunlight, sparkled as he poured it into a small vial.
“The truth is always of use, madonna,” he answered, eyes fixed on the slender stream. “It has the value of rarity, you know.” He set the porcelain jar on the counter with a soft thump. “And thus is worth a fair price in exchange,” he added. The money for the medicines I had bought was lying on the counter, the coins gleaming in the sun. I narrowed my eyes at him, but he merely smiled blandly, as though he had never heard of froglegs in garlic butter.
The horloge outside struck two. I calculated the distance to the Hawkins’s house in Rue Malory. Barely half an hour, if I could get a carriage. Plenty of time.
“In that case,” I said, “shall we step into your private room for a bit?”
“And that’s it,” I said, taking a long sip of cherry brandy. The fumes in the workroom were nearly as strong as those rising from my glass, and I could feel my head expanding under their influence, rather like a large, cheerful red balloon. “They let Jamie go, but we’re still under suspicion. I can’t imagine that will last long, though, do you?”
Raymond shook his head. A draft stirred the crocodile overhead, and he rose to shut the window.
“No. A nuisance, nothing more. Monsieur Hawkins has money and friends, and of course he is distraught, but still. Plainly you and your husband were guilty of nothing more than excessive kindness, in trying to keep the girl’s misfortune a secret.” He took a deep swallow from his own glass.
“And that is your concern at present, of course. The girl?”
I nodded. “One of them. There’s nothing I can do about her reputation at this point. All I can do is try to help her to heal.”
A sardonic black eye peered over the rim of the metal goblet he was holding.
“Most physicians of my acquaintance would say, ‘All I can do is try to heal her.’ You will help her to heal? It’s interesting that you perceive the difference, madonna. I thought you would.”
I set down the cup, feeling that I had had enough. Heat was radiating from my cheeks, and I had the distinct feeling that the tip of my nose was pink.
“I told you I’m not a real physician.” I closed my eyes briefly, determined that I could still tell which way was up, and opened them again. “Besides, I’ve … er, dealt with a case of rape once before. There isn’t a great deal you can do, externally. Maybe there isn’t a great deal you can do, period,” I added. I changed my mind and picked up the cup again.
“Perhaps not,” Raymond agreed. “But if anyone is capable of reaching the patient’s center, surely it would be La Dame Blanche?”
I set the cup down, staring at him. My mouth was unbecomingly open, and I closed it. Thoughts, suspicions, and realizations were rioting through my head, colliding with each other in tangles of conjecture. Temporarily sidestepping the traffic jam, I seized on the other half of his remark, to give me time to think.
“The patient’s center?”
He reached into an open jar on the table, withdrew a pinch of white powder, and dropped it into his goblet. The deep amber of the brandy immediately turned the color of blood, and began to boil.
“Dragon’s blood,” he remarked, casually waving at the bubbling liquid. “It only works in a vessel lined with silver. It ruins the cup, of course, but it’s most effective, done under the proper circumstances.”
I made a small, gurgling noise.
“Oh, the patient’s center,” he said, as though recalling something we had talked about many days ago. “Yes, of course. All healing is done essentially by reaching the … what shall we call it? the soul? the essence? say, the center. By reaching the patient’s center, from which they can heal themselves. Surely you have seen it, madonna. The cases so ill or so wounded that plainly they will die—but they don’t. Or those who suffer from something so slight that surely they must recover, with the proper care. But they slip away, despite all you can do for them.”
“Everyone who minds the sick has seen things like that,” I replied cautiously.
“Yes,” he agreed. “And the pride of the physician being what it is, most often he blames himself for those that die, and congratulates himself upon the triumph of his skill for those that live. But La Dame Blanche sees the essence of a man, and turns it to healing—or to death. So an evildoer may well fear to look upon her face.” He picked up the cup, raised it in a toast to me, and drained the bubbling liquid. It left a faint pink stain on his lips.
“Thanks,” I said dryly. “I think. So it wasn’t just Glengarry’s gullibility?”
Raymond shrugged, looking pleased with himself. “The inspiration was your husband’s,” he said modestly. “And a really excellent idea, too. But of course, while your husband has the respect of men for his own natural gifts, he would not be considered an authority on supernatural manifestations.”
“You, of course, would.”
The massive shoulders lifted slightly under the gray velvet robe. There were several small holes in one sleeve, charred around the edges, as though a number of tiny coals had burned their way through. Carelessness while conjuring, I supposed.
“You have been seen in my shop,” he pointed out. “Your background is a mystery. And as your husband noted, my own reputation is somewhat suspect. I do move in … circles, shall we say?”—the lipless mouth broadened in a grin—“where a speculation as to your true identity may be taken with undue seriousness. And you know how people talk,” he added with an air of prim disapproval that made me burst out laughing.
He set down the cup and leaned forward.
“You said that Mademoiselle Hawkins’s health was one concern, madonna. Have you others?”
“I have.” I took a small sip of brandy. “I’d guess that you hear a great deal about what goes on in Paris, don’t you?”
He smiled, black eyes sharp and genial. “Oh, yes, madonna. What is it that you want to know?”
“Have you heard anything about Charles Stuart? Do you know who he is, for that matter?”
That surprised him; the shelf of his forehead lifted briefly. Then he picked up a small glass bottle from the table in front of him, rolling it meditatively between his palms.
“Yes, madonna,” he said. “His father is—or should be—King of Scotland, is he not?”
“Well, that depends on your perspective,” I said, stifling a small belch. “He’s either the King of Scotland in exile, or the Pretender to the throne, but that’s of no great concern to me. What I want to know is … is Charles Stuart doing anything that would make one think he might be planning an armed invasion of Scotland or England?”
He laughed out loud.
“Goodness, madonna! You are a most uncommon woman. Have you any idea how rare such directness is?”
“Yes,” I admitted, “but there isn’t really any help for it. I’m not good at beating round bushes.” I reached out and took the bottle from him. “Have you heard anything?”
He glanced instinctively toward the half-door, but the shopgirl was occupied in mixing perfume for a voluble customer.
“Something small, madonna, only a casual mention in a letter from a friend—but the answer is most definitely yes.”
I could see him hesitating in how much to tell me. I kept my eyes on the bottle in my hand, to give him time to make up his mind. The contents rolled with a pleasant sensation as the little vial twisted in my palm. It was oddly heavy for its size, and had a strange, dense, fluid feel to it, as though it was filled with liquid metal.
“It’s quicksilver,” Master Raymond said, answering my unspoken question. Apparently whatever mind-reading he had been doing had decided him in my favor, for he took back the bottle, poured it out in a shimmering silver puddle on the table before us, and sat back to tell me what he knew.
“One of His Highness’s agents has made inquiries in Holland,” he said. “A man named O’Brien—and a man more inept at his job I hope never to employ,” he added. “A secret agent who drinks to excess?”
“Everyone around Charles Stuart drinks to excess,” I said. “What was O’Brien doing?”
“He wished to open negotiations for a shipment of broadswords. Two thousand broadswords, to be purchased in Spain, and sent through Holland, so as to conceal their place of origin.”
“Why would he do that?” I asked. I wasn’t sure whether I was naturally stupid, or merely fuddled with cherry brandy, but it seemed a pointless undertaking, even for Charles Stuart.
Raymond shrugged, prodding the puddle of quicksilver with a blunt forefinger.
“One can guess, madonna. The Spanish king is a cousin of the Scottish king, is he not? As well as of our good King Louis?”
“Yes, but …”
“Might it not be that he is willing to help the cause of the Stuarts, but not openly?”
The brandy haze was receding from my brain.
“It might.”
Raymond tapped his finger sharply downward, making the puddle of quicksilver shiver into several small round globules, that shimmied wildly over the tabletop.
“One hears,” he said mildly, eyes still on the droplets of mercury, “that King Louis entertains an English duke at Versailles. One hears also that the Duke is there to seek some arrangements of trade. But then it is rare to hear everything, madonna.”
I stared at the rippling drops of mercury, fitting all this together. Jamie, too, had heard the rumor that Sandringham’s embassage concerned more than trade rights. What if the Duke’s visit really concerned the possibilities of an agreement between France and England—perhaps with regard to the future of Brussels? And if Louis was negotiating secretly with England for support for his invasion of Brussels—then what might Philip of Spain be inclined to do, if approached by an impecunious cousin with the power to distract the English most thoroughly from any attention to foreign ventures?
“Three Bourbon cousins,” Raymond murmured to himself. He shepherded one of the drops toward another; as the droplets touched, they merged at once, a single shining drop springing into rounded life as though by magic. The prodding finger urged another droplet inward, and the single drop grew larger. “One blood. But one interest?”
The finger struck down again, and glittering fragments ran over the tabletop in every direction.
“I think not, madonna,” Raymond said calmly.
“I see,” I said, with a deep breath. “And what do you think about Charles Stuart’s new partnership with the Comte St. Germain?”
The wide amphibian smile grew broader.
“I have heard that His Highness goes often to the docks these days—to talk with his new partner, of course. And he looks at the ships at anchor—so fine and quick, so … expensive. The land of Scotland does lie across the water, does it not?”
“It does indeed,” I said. A ray of light hit the quicksilver with a flash, attracting my attention to the lowering sun. I would have to go.
“Thank you,” I said. “Will you send word? If you hear anything more?”
He inclined his massive head graciously, the swinging hair the color of mercury in the sun, then jerked it up abruptly.
“Ah! Do not touch the quicksilver, madonna!” he warned as I reached toward a droplet that had rolled toward my edge of the table. “It bonds at once with any metal it touches.” He reached across and tenderly scooped the tiny pellet toward him. “You do not wish to spoil your lovely rings.”
“Right,” I said. “Well, I’ll admit you’ve been helpful so far. No one’s tried to poison me lately. I don’t suppose you and Jamie between you are likely to get me burnt for witchcraft in the Place de la Bastille, do you?” I spoke lightly, but my memories of the thieves’ hole and the trial at Cranesmuir were still fresh.
“Certainly not,” he said, with dignity. “No one’s been burnt for witchcraft in Paris in … oh, twenty years, at least. You’re perfectly safe. As long as you don’t kill anyone,” he added.
“I’ll do my best,” I said, and rose to go.
Fergus found me a carriage with no difficulty, and I spent the short trip to the Hawkins house musing over recent developments. I supposed that Raymond had in fact done me a service by expanding on Jamie’s original wild story to his more superstitious clients, though the thought of having my name bandied about in séances or Black Masses left me with some misgivings.
It also occurred to me that, rushed for time, and beset with speculations of kings and swords and ships, I had not had time to ask Master Raymond where—if anywhere—the Comte St. Germain entered into his own realm of influence.
Public opinion seemed to place the Comte firmly in the center of the mysterious “circles” to which Raymond referred. But as a participant—or a rival? And did the ripples of these circles spread as far as the King’s chamber? Louis was rumored to take interest in astrology; could there be some connection, through the dark channels of Cabbalism and sorcery, among Louis, the Comte, and Charles Stuart?
I shook my head impatiently, to clear it of brandy fumes and pointless questions. The only thing that could be said for certain was that he had entered into a dangerous partnership with Charles Stuart, and that was concern enough for the present.
The Hawkins residence on the Rue Malory was a solid, respectable-looking house of three stories, but its internal disruption was apparent even to the casual observer. The day was warm, but all the shutters were still sealed tight against any intrusion of prying eyes. The steps had not been scrubbed this morning, and the marks of dirty feet smeared the white stone. No sign of cook or housemaid out front to bargain for fresh meat and gossip with the barrowmen. It was a house battened down against the coming of disaster.
Feeling not a little like a harbinger of doom myself, despite my relatively cheerful yellow gown, I sent Fergus up the steps to knock for me. There was some give-and-take between Fergus and whoever opened the door, but one of Fergus’s better character traits was an inability to take “no” for an answer, and shortly I found myself face-to-face with a woman who appeared to be the lady of the house, and therefore Mrs. Hawkins, Mary’s aunt.
I was forced to draw my own conclusions, as the woman seemed much too distraught to assist me by offering any sort of tangible information, such as her name.
“But we can’t see anybody!” she kept exclaiming, glancing furtively over her shoulder, as though expecting the bulky form of Mr. Hawkins suddenly to materialize accusingly behind her. “We’re … we have … that is …”
“I don’t want to see you,” I said firmly. “I want to see your niece, Mary.”
The name seemed to throw her into fresh paroxysms of alarm.
“She … but … Mary? No! She’s … she’s not well!”
“I don’t suppose she is,” I said patiently. I lifted my basket into view. “I’ve brought some medicines for her.”
“Oh! But … but … she … you … aren’t you …?”
“Havers, woman,” said Fergus in his best Scots accent. He viewed this spectacle of derangement disapprovingly. “The maid says the young mistress is upstairs in her room.”
“Just so,” I said. “Lead on, Fergus.” Waiting for no further encouragement, he ducked under the outstretched forearm that barred our way, and made off into the gloomy depths of the house. Mrs. Hawkins turned after him with an incoherent cry, allowing me to slip past her.
There was a maid on duty outside Mary’s door, a stout party in a striped apron, but she offered no resistance to my statement that I intended to go in. She shook her head mournfully. “I can do nothing with her, Madame. Perhaps you will have better luck.”
This didn’t sound at all promising, but there was little choice. At least I wasn’t likely to do further harm. I straightened my gown and pushed open the door.
It was like walking into a cave. The windows were covered with heavy brown velvet draperies, drawn tight against the daylight, and what chinks of light seeped through were immediately quenched in the hovering layer of smoke from the hearth.
I took a deep breath and let it out again at once, coughing. There was no stir from the figure on the bed; a pathetically small, hunched shape under a goose-feather duvet. Surely the drug had worn off by now, and she couldn’t be asleep, after all the racket there had been in the hallway. Probably playing possum, in case it was her aunt come back for further blithering harangues. I would have done the same, in her place.
I turned and shut the door firmly in Mrs. Hawkins’s wretched face, then walked over to the bed.
“It’s me,” I said. “Why don’t you come out, before you suffocate in there?”
There was a sudden upheaval of bedclothes, and Mary shot out of the quilts like a dolphin rising from the sea waves, and clutched me round the neck.
“Claire! Oh, Claire! Thank God! I thought I’d n-never see you again! Uncle said you were in prison! He s-said you—”
“Let go!” I managed to detach her grip, and force her back enough to get a look at her. She was red-faced, sweaty, and disheveled from hiding beneath the covers, but otherwise looked fine. Her brown eyes were wide and bright, with no sign of opium intoxication, and while she looked excited and alarmed, apparently a night’s rest, coupled with the resilience of youth, had taken care of most of her physical injuries. The others were what worried me.
“No, I’m not in prison,” I said, trying to stem her eager questions. “Obviously not, though it isn’t for any lack of trying on your uncle’s part.”
“B-but I told him—” she began, then stammered and let her eyes fall. “—at least I t-t-tried to tell him, but he—but I …”
“Don’t worry about it,” I assured her. “He’s so upset he wouldn’t listen to anything you said, no matter how you said it. It doesn’t matter, anyway. The important thing is you. How do you feel?” I pushed the heavy dark hair back from her forehead and looked her over searchingly.
“All right,” she answered, and gulped. “I … bled a little bit, but it stopped.” The blood rose still higher in her fair cheeks, but she didn’t drop her eyes. “I … it’s … sore. D-does that go away?”
“Yes, it does,” I said gently. “I brought some herbs for you. They’re to be brewed in hot water, and as the infusion cools, you can apply it with a cloth, or sit in it in a tub, if one’s handy. It will help.” I got the bundles of herbs from my reticule and laid them on her side table.
She nodded, biting her lip. Plainly there was something more she wanted to say, her native shyness battling her need for confidence.
“What is it?” I asked, as matter-of-factly as I could.
“Am I going to have a baby?” she blurted out, looking up fearfully. “You said …”
“No,” I said, as firmly as I could. “You aren’t. He wasn’t able to … finish.” In the folds of my skirt, I crossed both pairs of fingers, hoping fervently that I was right. The chances were very small indeed, but such freaks had been known to happen. Still, there was no point in alarming her further over the faint possibility. The thought made me faintly ill. Could such an accident be the possible answer to the riddle of Frank’s existence? I put the notion aside; a month’s wait would prove or dispel it.
“It’s hot as a bloody oven in here,” I said, loosening the ties at my throat in order to breathe. “And smoky as hell’s vestibule, as my old uncle used to say.” Unsure what on earth to say to her next, I rose and went round the room throwing back drapes and opening windows.
“Aunt Helen said I mustn’t let anyone see me,” Mary said, kneeling up in bed as she watched me. “She says I’m d-disgraced, and people will point at me in the street if I go out.”
“They might, the ghouls.” I finished my airing and came back to her. “That doesn’t mean you need bury yourself alive and suffocate in the process.” I sat down beside her, and leaned back in my chair, feeling the cool fresh air blow through my hair as it swept the smoke from the room.
She was silent for a long time, toying with the bundles of herbs on the table. Finally she looked up at me, smiling bravely, though her lower lip trembled slightly.
“At least I won’t have to m-marry the Vicomte. Uncle says he’ll n-never have me now.”
“No, I don’t suppose so.”
She nodded, looking down at the gauze wrapped square on her knee. Her fingers fiddled restlessly with the string, so that one end came loose and a few crumbs of goldenrod fell out onto the coverlet.
“I … used to th-think about it; what you told me, about how a m-man …” She stopped and swallowed, and I saw a single tear fall onto the gauze. “I didn’t think I could stand to let the Vicomte do that to me. N-now it’s been done … and n-nobody can undo it and I’ll never have to d-do it again … and … and … oh, Claire, Alex will never speak to me again! I’ll never see him again, never!”
She collapsed into my arms, weeping hysterically and scattering herbs. I clutched her against my shoulder and patted her, making small shushing noises, though I shed a few tears myself that fell unnoticed into the dark shininess of her hair.
“You’ll see him again,” I whispered. “Of course you will. It won’t make a difference to him. He’s a good man.”
But I knew it would. I had seen the anguish on Alex Randall’s face the night before, and at the time thought it only the same helpless pity for suffering that I saw in Jamie and Murtagh. But since I had learned of Alex Randall’s professed love for Mary, I had realized how much deeper his own pain must go—and his fear.
He seemed a good man. But he was also a poor, younger son, in ill health and with little chance of advancement; what position he did have was entirely dependent on the Duke of Sandringham’s goodwill. And I had little hope that the Duke would look kindly on the idea of his secretary’s union with a disgraced and ruined girl, who had now neither social connections nor dowry to bless herself with.
And if Alex found somewhere the courage to wed her in spite of everything—what chance would they have, penniless, cast out of polite society, and with the hideous fact of the rape overshadowing their knowledge of each other?
There was nothing I could do but hold her, and weep with her for what was lost.
It was twilight by the time I left, with the first stars coming out in faint speckles over the chimneypots. In my pocket was a letter written by Mary, properly witnessed, containing her statement of the events of the night before. Once this was delivered to the proper authorities, we should at least have no further trouble from the law. Just as well; there was plenty of trouble pending from other quarters.
Mindful, this time, of danger, I made no objection to Mrs. Hawkins’s unwilling offer to have me and Fergus transported home in the family carriage.
I tossed my hat on the card table in the vestibule, observing the large number of notes and small nosegays that overflowed the salver there. Apparently we weren’t yet pariahs, though the news of the scandal must long since have spread through the social strata of Paris.
I waved away the anxious inquiries of the servants, and drifted upward toward the bedchamber, shedding my outer garments carelessly along the way. I felt too drained to care about anything.
But when I pushed open the bedchamber door and saw Jamie, lying back in a chair by the fire, my apathy was at once supplanted by a surge of tenderness. His eyes were closed and his hair sticking up in all directions, sure sign of mental turmoil at some point. But he opened his eyes at the slight noise of my entrance and smiled at me, eyes clear and blue in the warm light of the candelabrum.
“It’s all right” was all he whispered to me as he gathered me into his arms. “You’re home.” Then we were silent, as we undressed each other and went finally to earth, each finding delayed and wordless sanctuary in the other’s embrace.