Petty Treason (17 page)

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Authors: Madeleine E. Robins

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“But you will wait until you have recovered somewhat from your injuries? I do not like to say anything, but it appears someone got the better of you. I should not like to think it could happen again.”
Miss Tolerance smiled. It hurt to do so. “I appreciate your concern, Sir Walter, and your tact. A footpad attempted to get the better of me. The fact that I am here suggests that he did not. I was careless, nothing more.”
Mandif put down his cup, the tea in it untouched, and rose. “That is unlike you.” He extended his hand to her. “I hope you will be more careful, Miss Tolerance. I value your friendship; I dislike that anyone should hurt my friend.”
Miss Tolerance curtsied. “Your friend got what she deserved for letting her attention wander. That will not happen again.”
 
 
W
hen Sir Walter left, Miss Tolerance turned her back on a deep longing to return to her bed. Instead, she wrote a note and brought it to the house to ask that it be delivered to Madame Touvois’ rooms in Audley Street. She stopped in the kitchen afterward for arnica, then returned to her cottage, where she applied compresses to her swollen face and awaited a reply. It came within the hour. Miss Tolerance put aside the liniment and compresses and made ready for a visit in Audley Street. What Camille Touvois would make of her bruises, Miss Tolerance did not know. It would be instructive to find out.
F
or her first visit to Madame Touvois, Miss Tolerance had dressed as an unexceptional guest at an informal evening party, to suit her purpose as observer. Today, with the marks of a brawl unmistakable upon her face, she could not pretend to be unremarkable. Miss Tolerance decided to meet Camille Touvois as brazenly confident as possible. She outfitted herself in a seldom-worn gown of china-red twill with narrow ruffles of white lace at the throat and wrists. The simplicity of the tailoring argued respectability. The vibrant color suggested its lack. The effect of the whole, worn with a gray bonnet trimmed with red ribbon, was pleasantly bold.
Miss Tolerance presented her card to the maidservant who admitted her. She was ushered into the second of the rooms in Madame Touvois’ apartment, where there was a good fire. Madame Touvois rose from a chair by the grate to greet her visitor; as Miss Tolerance stepped further into the light and the livid bruises on her face became unmistakable, Madame Touvois’ eyebrows rose. Miss Tolerance curtsied and thanked her hostess for her invitation to call; neither woman mentioned the bruises, and Miss Tolerance took the chair to which her hostess gestured.
Madame Touvois turned to a tray at her elbow upon which were a decanter, a pair of glasses, and a plate of rather shopworn biscuits. She wore a gray-green dress, with a heavy shawl looped over her elbows which moved gracefully as she poured wine and offered a glass to her visitor.
“You wished to talk,” Madame Touvois said.
Miss Tolerance smiled politely and took the glass. The room, which she had seen only in candlelight and filled with people, was not improved by the addition of daylight. The ceilings and windows were high, the drapes heavy; there was gilding upon the woodwork and the furniture was handsome, but Madame Touvois and her servants were clearly indifferent to dirt. The windows were smoky, the gilt worn thin, and there was a taste of something stale and musty about the air.
“The day is dark, is it not?” Madame Touvois suggested.
“It is indeed. And windy as well.”
“And you have come to speak with me about the Chevalier d’Aubigny’s death.”
Miss Tolerance inclined her head.
“You do not ask how I know it?”
“But you knew that on the evening when I visited your
salon,
Madame. As for how you knew it, I imagine Mrs. Vose told you. Or perhaps the man who followed me from my interview with her.” Miss Tolerance brushed a finger across her cheek to indicate her injuries.
Madame Touvois looked sympathetic. “A man followed you from an interview? But such a thing must be an everyday event in your profession!” Then, with only the appearance of changing the subject: “I cannot tell you how gratified I was to receive your note, Miss Tolerance. Surprised and gratified.”
Miss Tolerance feigned misunderstanding. “Because I was followed home, ma’am?”
Madame Touvois blinked. Her smile became fixed. After a moment she went on. “Because I have been so very interested to speak more with you. You must know I am very curious about your so-interesting profession.”
“As am I in yours, ma’am.” Miss Tolerance looked at the wine in her glass but did not drink.
“Me? I have no profession. I am merely a woman with a taste for artistic society, and sufficient jointure to entertain widely.”
“You do yourself no credit, ma’am. The woman whose
salon
is talked of everywhere, and which attracts such visitors as a prince of the blood, is not an hospitable widow but an artful hostess.”
“You flatter me, Miss Tolerance.” Camille Touvois smiled.
“Certainly not, ma’am. I confess I was surprised to see His Grace of Cumberland here,” Miss Tolerance continued. “I would not have thought the company to his taste.”
“I believe His Grace honors us through a wish to understand his liberal enemies.”
“Indeed?” Miss Tolerance’s tone bespoke polite disbelief. Would the prince, who commonly referred to even the mildest exponents of the Whig party as
canaille,
mix with common poets and civil servants out of mere curiosity? Given Cumberland’s reputation, she thought it more likely that La Touvois had lured the duke there with the promise of handsome women—of which there had certainly been a number.
“Now, Miss Tolerance, I believe you have some questions to ask me.”
“About what, ma’am?”
“About the Chevalier d’Aubigny,” Madame Touvois reminded her.
“Is there something you wish to tell me?” Miss Tolerance’s instinct was that a direct question to Madame Touvois was likely to yield a flat lie. Her aim was to annoy the woman into admission, if it was possible. “My recollection was that you had some questions for
me
.” She was gratified to see that she had confused Madame Touvois.
“I had—”
“You wished to know—what was your phrase?” Miss Tolerance mimed recollection. “Oh, yes: how one would become what I am.”
“Oh, dear. I hope you did not take offense at my harmless curiosity, Miss Tolerance.” From her tone, Madame Touvois hoped quite the opposite.
“Not the least in the world, madame. I value curiosity; it is a staple of my trade. I can easily answer your question if you like.”
“I
should
like to know,” Madame Touvois said with studied earnestness.
“‘Tis easily told. I fell in love with a man when I was young. I was ruined. I did not like the usual career available to women like myself, and so I found another one.”
“But that does not tell me how you became what you are?”
“And what is that?”
Madame Touvois considered. Miss Tolerance had the impression that, for a moment, all artifice had fallen away and the woman was striving to put into words something difficult to articulate. “A woman who moves through a man’s world. A woman without regrets. A woman who does not capitulate.” She looked directly at Miss Tolerance with an expression that was reflexively admiring, as if by admiring these traits in Miss Tolerance she hoped to make it clear that they were hers as well.
“Now you flatter me,” Miss Tolerance said coolly. “I am only a woman with her living to make. Some do so on their backs. I choose to do it on my feet. I have regrets; I simply cannot afford to indulge them. As for capitulation—why, if I had capitulated to the man who attempted to kill me yesterday, I should not be here enjoying this conversation.”
She smiled at her hostess. Silence descended.
“You know that Etienne d’Aubigny was a very unpleasant man,” Madame Touvois said at last.
“That seems to be an understatement,” Miss Tolerance replied.
Whatever Camille Touvois had expected, it was not Miss Tolerance’s bland agreement. She gave a low, delighted laugh.
“You are right. He was well-looking enough. He had some charm and, from what I am told, some—” She paused thoughtfully. “Some gifts of invention. But he was not generous, which might have commended a man of his tastes to his playfellows. And he vastly overestimated his own intellect.”
“With you, ma’am?”
“Oh, certainly. He was the sort of man to match wits with everyone he met. Since most people have not the wit of a kitchen cat,
M. le Chevalier
had convinced himself he was a very clever fellow.”
“But he was not?”
Madame Touvois smiled at some private thought. “Not in the end, no.” She shook her head. “I believe he came here at first in order to be amused by the company—will it amuse
you
to know, Miss Tolerance, that most of the men who come to my parties believe that they are political theorists and patriots? It is easy to laugh at them.”
“So d’Aubigny came at first to laugh—and stayed?”
“Because of Mrs. Vose, of course.” Madame Touvois did not bother to deny the connection. “He was the sort of man who likes to dominate—a room, a conversation, a woman. Among her other gifts, Mrs. Vose is the sort of woman who will permit herself to be dominated. For a fee. They dealt very well together while he had money.”
“So she had told me. You would not have any notion of where the chevalier’s money came from, would you?”
Did Madame Touvois frown? “Why, I thought he had married it. Some poor little girl with countrified vowels whom he kept locked away at home. Certainly he could not have bought his boots on what the Home Office paid him.”
“In the days before his death, the chevalier apparently settled most or all of his debts, which is intriguing, since he had been unable to do so before. And he did not borrow the money,” Miss Tolerance added. “Not from banks or moneylenders. I was wondering if you knew of any particular friends who might have loaned d’Aubigny a substantial amount of money.”
Again, Miss Tolerance had only the impression of a frown on Camille Touvois’s face. “I doubt anyone would be so foolish as to loan M. d’Aubigny money, Miss Tolerance. They would surely never have seen it again.”
“For some people that is not the first consideration,” Miss Tolerance said. “Else the Dukes of Kent and Clarence would have been forced to rusticate long ago.”
“Yes, but there is no cachet to lending money to a man like
M. le Chevalier
to offset the insult to one’s pocket.”
Miss Tolerance nodded. An idea occurred to her. “Perhaps it was a … a forced loan?”
“Do you suggest robbery, Miss Tolerance?
M. le Chevalier
had
far too high an opinion of himself to take to the—what is it called? The high toby.”
Miss Tolerance, in the grip of a theory whose logic grew more convincing with each second, shook her head. “I was not suggesting he had turned highwayman, madame. But consider: an unpleasant man who likes to dominate rooms and conversations and women, who imagines himself very clever indeed, a man who must constantly expect to hear the bailiff’s knock, but has no resources to pay his debts of honor, let alone his butcher’s dun. If such a man got hold of a secret, might he not use it to his advantage?”
“
Chantage
?”
“Blackmail, yes. It would answer a good many questions.”
“But where would he have got such a secret? Even his most optimistic superiors at the Home Office would not have entrusted secrets of state to a man like d’Aubigny.”
“As his superiors knew he was gambling and traveling in a questionable set, you are likely correct. But I was not imagining d’Aubigny would traffic in secrets of state. I think it must be blackmail and not treason that was his goal.”
“Why is that?” Madame Touvois paused to refill the glasses.
“As you say, his work was not likely to provide him with information that could have commanded money. And, too, with all the unpleasantness of which it appears the man was capable, I have not heard that he was ungrateful to the nation which took his family in. You are an émigré, Madam. Would you betray England?”
“What a question!” Madame Touvois pursed her lips. “Perhaps, then, d’Aubigny learned a secret in one of the birching houses—”
“You think he threatened to expose a patron? But would that be such a dire exposure, ma’am? When you consider the sorts of dissipations with which many of our leading men are credited, mere birching seems rather tame. But let us suppose that your notion is correct.” Miss Tolerance nodded amiably and tasted her wine. It was very dry. “Using a secret learnt in a whorehouse creates a sort of reciprocal effect did he try to blackmail one party, he might be blackmailed in return. But a person who can turn tables on his
oppressor is less likely to resort to murder himself. And, of course, I am looking for a murderer. Therefore, I am looking for someone who could not exert a reciprocal pressure on his blackmailer.”
“Nicely reasoned, Miss Tolerance. Except, you appear to argue away every venue where the chevalier might have learnt a valuable secret.”
“Do I? I wonder if perhaps he learned something in the drawing room of a friend.”
“Here? Should I resent the implication, Miss Tolerance?”
“Not in the least, ma’am. I have no wish to offend you. Yours is, after all, not the only drawing room to which the chevalier was a visitor. Nor can you be expected to control what your guests murmur to each other out of your earshot.”
That, Miss Tolerance thought with some satisfaction, was a palpable hit. She was not certain which her hostess disliked more: the assertion that there was something in her circle that she could not control, or the reminder that hers was not the only
salon
of note in the city.
“But perhaps lesser drawing rooms would not yield the sort of visitors capable of supplying
M. le Chevalier
with his needed cash,” Madame Touvois countered. “But you see how I am confused! Do I truly wish to convince you that mine is the only house in which the chevalier might have blackmailed another of my guests? Of course I would have been horrified had that been so.” She fixed Miss Tolerance with guileless regard.
“I am certain of it, ma’am.” Miss Tolerance returned her look. “But you have been generous with your time. I must not trespass on that generosity further.” She stood, took up her gloves and reticule. “Thank you, ma’am. It has been very informative to speak with you.”

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