The Orchid Affair (22 page)

Chapter 21

M
ist lay heavy over the graveled paths of the Jardins du Luxembourg. It wasn’t so much raining as it was oozing; Laura’s pelisse was already damp through, simply from walking in the moisture-rich air. Beads of liquid pearled the statues on their stone plinths. Inadequately garbed for the climate, Venus shivered on her pedestal, casting recriminatory glances at Mars in his boots and breastplate.

Would the Pink Carnation keep her appointment? The desolation of the gardens increased the risk of the meeting. If the gardens were bustling with activity, with nannies and their charges, young ladies sketching, clerks snatching a moment in the sunshine, it would be easy enough to contrive a chance meeting. Two women alone in the rain made a stranger spectacle.

Not, of course, as strange a spectacle as Suzette, the girl men couldn’t forget.

Laura grimaced at the memory. To be honest, she had rather enjoyed herself. It had been nice, for a change, to shuck off restraint along with her dress and to play the sort of character she seemed destined never to be. For about ten minutes, she had felt beautiful. Desirable. She remembered the expression on Jaouen’s face as she had made her grand entrance from the dining room, more courtesan than governess.

We are well past liberties, you and I.

If her mission succeeded, Jaouen would be gone within a matter of hours. Gone from Paris, gone from her life.

Onward and upward, she told herself bracingly. She wasn’t meant to get attached, either as a governess or as an agent. In fact, one of her primary attractions for the Pink Carnation had been her detachment. She belonged to nothing and to no one.

When was the last time she had been invited to call anyone by his first name?

There was a young lady making her way down the path towards the ruins of the Medici fountain. She glanced anxiously at the sky as she walked, a sketchbook clutched beneath one arm. She held no umbrella, only a reticule that dangled from one wrist, swinging as she walked. As Laura watched, she frowned up at the sky, holding up a gloved hand as though to test the air. As if in response, a fat drop splashed down on Laura’s nose. The clouds had gathered and the heavens were about to open.

The young lady appeared to have realized it also. She made an anxious survey of the gardens. Catching sight of the remains of the loggia that had once framed the fountain, she gathered up her skirts and dashed for shelter, holding on to her bonnet with one hand, her sketchbook and her skirts with the other.

Belatedly, Laura realized what she was meant to do. Grabbing hold of her own skirts, she followed suit, floundering as her hem dragged in the mud. She arrived, gasping, beneath the loggia.

“You don’t mind?” she panted. “The rain—”

“No, no,” said the Pink Carnation generously. “Do stand with me. Hopefully it will pass in a moment. So silly of me to come out without an umbrella!” She glanced ruefully at the sky. “When I decided to paint watercolors today, I hadn’t thought nature meant to provide the water.”

Laura looked at her sideways. “How very accommodating of it.”

To her surprise, the Pink Carnation laughed, a genuine laugh. “I knew I hadn’t made a mistake with you. I had hoped it would rain, but hadn’t been sure I could count on it.” Shaking out her damp bonnet, she regarded it complacently. “Anyone will see only two ladies marooned beneath an overhang, attempting to keep their dresses dry. There is no one within earshot. Miss Gwen will give the signal if anyone approaches.”

Miss Gwen? Laura took a surreptitious glance around but saw no sign of the chaperone. Wherever she was, she was well hidden.

The Pink Carnation had called this meeting, presumably for reasons of her own, but Laura decided that the matter of the Duc de Berry took precedence.

“Thank goodness for the rain,” Laura agreed. “Matters have taken a strange turn. I am much in need of your aid.”

The Pink Carnation was instantly all alert. “Did Jaouen discover you?”

Laura could have laughed. Almost. “Say rather that I discovered him.” She braced herself for disbelief. “Monsieur Jaouen claims to be working for the Comte d’Artois.”

If she was surprised, the Pink Carnation didn’t betray it. “Do you believe him?”

She only wished she knew. “If he is playing a double game, it’s a very deep one.”

A small line appeared between the Pink Carnation’s perfectly shaped brows. “You haven’t told him—”

“No!” Laura wasn’t sure whether to be offended that the Pink Carnation had thought she might. “No. He thinks I’ve offered to help him out of affection for Monsieur Daubier.”

“Daubier,” said Miss Wooliston musingly. “The man who was arrested last night.” She raised a brow at Laura. “Affection?”

Laura shook herself out of unprofitable reverie. “Monsieur Daubier was a friend of my parents. Monsieur Jaouen has been led to believe that I keep his secret on their account.”

“How does Monsieur Daubier fit into all this?”

Laura examined her gloves, choosing her words carefully. “I gather—although I am not entirely sure—that Monsieur Daubier was to be their means of entry to the Tuileries. He had recently been commissioned to paint a portrait of the First Consul.”

“A position of some intimacy,” commented the Pink Carnation. “Providing exceptional access.”

Laura nodded. “I saw uniforms in an unused room in the Hôtel de Bac. They were uniforms of the Consular Guard. Jaouen claimed they belonged to his cousin.”

“I see.” The Pink Carnation stared off into the rain, an impatient young lady eager to resume her sketching, bored with her current company. “If Daubier were to bring with him soldiers disguised as members of the Consul’s own bodyguard …”

“I have no proof,” said Laura hastily. “Well, not that sort of proof.”

The Pink Carnation looked at her sharply. “What is it?”

There was no way to say it but to say it. “The Duc de Berry. Jaouen is hiding the Duc de Berry.”

Miss Wooliston’s eyes lit with excitement. “So that is where he is!”

“Not the whole time,” said Laura honestly. “Jaouen has been passing him off as his cousin, but I gather he was hiding part of the time with Daubier and before that with someone they referred to only as Cousin Héloïse.”

“Cadoudal,” said Miss Wooliston. “Cadoudal would have wanted to keep him close until le Petit Picot’s arrest. When the water got too hot and he realized he was himself in danger, he must have sent the prince off to Daubier.” For Laura’s benefit, she added, “We knew the prince was somewhere in France, but we didn’t know where. Artois wouldn’t say. This was not,” she said primly, “an expedition we encouraged.”

Laura wondered who the Pink Carnation meant by “we.” The War Office? The English government? Either way, the general thrust was clear. Once again, the Royalist forces and the English ones were working out of concert.

“The duke will have to be got out of Paris,” said the Pink Carnation determinedly. “It would be too embarrassing for everyone concerned if he were caught. I take it their plans have been aborted?”

“Jaouen seems to think that without Daubier, they have no hope of going forward.”

The Pink Carnation nodded knowledgably. “Without Daubier to provide access and Cadoudal on the run, all they have is one Bourbon prince and a number of useless uniforms.”

“Could we use the uniforms to get de Berry, Daubier, and Jaouen out of the city?” asked Laura.

“Members of the Consular Guard on a pleasure jaunt outside of Paris?” The Pink Carnation shook her head. “The Governor of Paris has ordered the gates of the city closed and all vehicles searched. We’ll have to be cleverer than that.”

Laura felt an entirely unwarranted sense of relief at that word “we.” “Monsieur Jaouen thinks that he can get Monsieur Daubier out of the Temple, but only at the expense of his position. He needs to leave Paris immediately—he, the children, Monsieur Daubier, and the Duc de Berry. Oh, and the nursery maid, Jeannette.”

The Pink Carnation’s expression was wry. “Would they like to add a few dancing bears and a small band?”

Lined up that way, it did sound rather ridiculous. But this was the Pink Carnation, who specialized in making the ridiculous possible. Who else would have left petals on Bonaparte’s pillow. “Can it be done?”

“Possibly.” Miss Wooliston’s cool gray gaze settled on Laura. “You left yourself off that list.”

“Me?”

The Pink Carnation’s expression was thoughtful. “I would like you to go with them. I need someone trustworthy to ensure that the Duc de Berry doesn’t come to grief between here and London.”

“Why me?”

“You know Jaouen. He trusts you. Don’t you think Jaouen would object to the inclusion of someone else at this late stage? You have the best opportunity of anyone to oversee de Berry’s departure without causing additional suspicion.”

Weeks on the road with Jaouen, working together rather than at cross-purposes, as equals rather than employer to employee.

“You’re sure you have nothing more pressing for me in Paris?” said Laura.

“Remaining in Paris might not be … wise. Monsieur Delaroche has marked you out. When Jaouen disappears, you will be the first person for whom he’ll search. Monsieur Delaroche’s methods of interrogation are not pleasant.”

The Pink Carnation wasn’t trying to scare her. That wasn’t Miss Wooliston’s way. She spoke frankly, colleague to colleague. The reason the words sent such a chill down Laura’s spine was that she knew them to be true.

That, and the fact that she was standing directly beneath a leak.

Laura hastily shifted sideways, out of the way of the cold drip. “I didn’t imagine they would be. Do you think he …”

“Suspects you? No. But you were in Jaouen’s employ and therefore can be presumed to have some notion of where he might have got to. Delaroche is of the sort who doesn’t mind how many eggs he breaks in the acquisition of his omelet. In fact, I believe he rather enjoys it.”

“Torture for torture’s sake,” said Laura. She knew she hadn’t liked the man. “Lovely.”

“No. Rather wasteful, really,” said the Pink Carnation with the detachment of a professional. “But that is how Monsieur Delaroche operates—and will continue to do so unless Monsieur Fouché deems it worth his while to rein him in. I do not believe he will in this instance. Not in anything relating to Jaouen.”

As Jaouen’s cousin and patron, Fouché would be too closely implicated to make any exceptions to the rules. He wouldn’t risk it. Not for a governess. She was, as the Pink Carnation had so delicately pointed out, expendable.

“It will,” said the Pink Carnation, “be terribly embarrassing for Monsieur Fouché when this all breaks. His own position is currently less than secure.”

“In other words,” said Laura, her mouth unaccountably dry, “he will be inclined to interrogate anyone involved with more than unusual zeal. To prove that he himself is not implicated.”

“That is about the shape of it,” said Miss Wooliston matter-of-factly. They might have been discussing flower arrangements for a church fête.

“Should we break into smaller groups?” Laura asked. “I with the Duc de Berry and Daubier, Jaouen with his children?”

“I don’t believe that will be necessary. Sometimes the easiest way to escape is in plain sight.”

Something about the way the Pink Carnation said it made Laura very, very nervous. “What do you mean?” she asked.

Miss Wooliston countered her question with a question of her own. “How long will it take Jaouen to release Daubier?”

“Not long,” said Laura cautiously. “At least, that was the sense I received. But he must be gone immediately after.”

“If I gave you an address, could you make sure the entire party is there by dawn tomorrow?”

Laura thought of them all—de Berry and Daubier, the children, Jeannette. Jaouen.

“I believe so,” she said.

The Pink Carnation’s lips curved upwards in a decidedly cat-who-got-the-cream sort of smile.

“Excellent!” she said. “Here is what you need to do …”

Rain dripped down from the brim of André’s hat as he rapped smartly at the concierge’s door at the Temple Prison.

André had taken the carriage to the Prefecture, then slipped down a side stair and out one of the Prefecture’s many side doors. He had walked from there to the Temple, his coat held close and his hat pulled low over his head against the rain.

He had known for some time that his coachman was in the pay of Fouché, a fact that he now intended to use to good purpose. As far as the coachman was concerned, André was safely ensconced in his office in the Prefecture until evening; it would take hours before anyone realized he was missing.

It was a weak bluff, susceptible to all sorts of mischance, but every little bit helped.

The concierge had fallen asleep over his ledgers. He started awake as André rapped again, more forcefully.

“Monsieur Jaouen!” he exclaimed, rocking back in his chair. Papers sifted to the floor. There was a splotch of ink on the concierge’s cheek and a corresponding blot in the requisition book. “I didn’t expect you. No one told me—”

André waved aside his apologies. “No matter. I need the keys for”—he made a show of consulting the paper in his hand—“prisoner five hundred and fifty-two. Antoine Daubier.”