The Orchid Affair (37 page)

“Or,” countered Laura, “the obligation of a father.”

She maintained her stance in front of Delaroche, blocking his path to Gabrielle and de Berry. Weapons … weapons…. What did they have by way of weapons? De Berry, still in his theatrical garb, was unarmed save for a paper sword. One of the disadvantages of being on a ship was the lack of a fireplace. There was no convenient poker with which to bash away. The furniture was either too heavy to throw, bolted to the floor, or both.

Could they swim for it? If she opened the window, could de Berry and Gabrielle jump through?

Delaroche shrugged aside the bonds of paternal affection. “A weakness by any other word is still a weakness. As much as I have enjoyed this conversation, Mademoiselle, I would be much obliged if you would remove yourself from my path.”

Laura stayed just where she was. “Do you have a purpose for your presence, or is this a social call?”

“Yes,” chimed in the Duc de Berry. No, no, no, thought Laura, but it was already too late; de Berry was levering himself out of his chair, striding over to look down his Bourbon nose at Gaston Delaroche. “Who in the devil might you be, and what are you doing here?”

Delaroche shoved Laura unceremoniously aside. She staggered a bit, catching at the wall as Delaroche strutted into the room, the guards crowding in after him.

Delaroche snapped his fingers. “Hold them,” he said in bored tones.

Someone grabbed Laura’s arms, pulling them behind her. Laura instinctively tensed to struggle but thought better of it, forcing her body to relax. The grip on her arms was a surprisingly perfunctory one, as if her assailant couldn’t be bothered to put much effort into it. She might need to use that later.

“Gabrielle!” she said sharply, and the little girl stopped twisting and pulling. Laura shook her head. “Not now.”

Ignoring them, Delaroche strolled up to de Berry, secure in the knowledge that, while two of his guards might be occupied, there were still two pistols behind him. “Your Royal Highness, I presume?”

De Berry looked Delaroche up and down, tall and proud, every inch a prince. Good heavens, thought Laura, why didn’t he just hang a sign around his neck saying
Guillotine me now
?

“Who might you be?” asked de Berry curtly.

“I,” said Delaroche, “am your destiny. I suggest you come quietly, Your Highness, or you will find yourself coming … very … quietly.” He gestured with his cane. “Do I make myself clear?”

Delaroche didn’t wait for de Berry to respond. He snapped his fingers at his two remaining henchmen. “Bind the Bourbon traitor,” he ordered. “And if he resists …” Delaroche’s lips curled. As Gabrielle had noted before, it was a singularly nasty smile. “Kill the girl.”

“Er, which one?” asked one of the thugs, looking from Gabrielle to Laura.

Delaroche clicked his tongue with annoyance. “Must I tell you everything? The small one, you cretin. No one would miss the other.”

“I say,” said de Berry, his nose going red with annoyance. “This is uncivilized.”

“Uncivilized?” Delaroche tilted his head, rolling the word on his tongue. “Or effective? Jean-Marc!”

One of the thugs snapped to.

Delaroche pointed a bony finger at Gabrielle. “Show these people that I mean business.”

Gabrielle began struggling in earnest, twisting and wriggling to free herself, as agile as desperation could make her. Her captor grappled to keep his hold on her, cursing in a thick Norman accent as Gabrielle turned into a frantic, biting, clawing thing.

It was now or never. Laura stamped down hard on her captor’s foot and wrenched out of his grasp.

They could try to fight their way out or …

“Stop!” Laura shouted.

Two guns swung in her direction. Her former captor was too busy hopping up and down on one foot, while Gabrielle’s had finally succeeded in wrestling her into a standstill, breathing heavily, a long rip in one sleeve. Blood oozed from a bite on his wrist.

Well done, Gabrielle, thought Laura.

“Stop?” Delaroche repeated in tones of disdain. “You dare to order my men to stop?”

Laura planted both hands on her hips as though she were still playing the shrewish Ruffiana.

“Yes,” she said. “I do. I order you to stop in the name of the Ministry of Police.”

“I
am
the Ministry of Police,” said Delaroche.

“No,” said Laura confidently. She had to sound confident. If she didn’t, they didn’t have a chance. She narrowed her eyes as far as they would go, giving Delaroche a look of scathing contempt. “You work for the Ministry of Police. And a fine mess you’re making of it, I might add. Fouché isn’t going to like this. At all.”

Delaroche’s henchmen looked confused. So did de Berry, who looked from Delaroche to Laura and back again as though trying to figure out which was most likely to turn into a bat and flap off through the window.

Delaroche clicked a button, causing the casing on the top of his cane to pop. A thin, shiny sliver of steel showed between the panels of polished wood.

“Who are you to lecture me on the likes and dislikes of the Minister of Police, Mademoiselle?”

Laura laughed a low, rough laugh. “Did you really think you were the only one Fouché had entrusted with this business?”

André bumped into Daubier’s back as the other man came to an abrupt halt.

Through the open door of the cabin, he could see Laura, but a Laura such as he hadn’t seen before. Gone was the self-controlled Mlle. Griscogne or even the practical day-to-day companion of the last few months. This was a shrew of the ranting, carping variety—eyes narrowed, hands on her hips, exuding contempt with every movement.

“I had this well in hand until you came along,” Laura spat out, advancing on Delaroche with a swaggering walk that was nothing like her own. “
Well
in hand. And then you come along with your cryptic pronouncements and your evil laughter, making a muck out of the whole operation. Months! Months of planning
wasted
.”

Daubier turned to André with an alarmed look, confusion written all over his face.
“Laura?”
he mouthed.

André gave a brisk shake of his head, motioning Daubier to silence.

“Fouché wouldn’t have—,” Delaroche began, but he didn’t sound entirely certain. They all knew that Fouché would.

Laura threw back her head, cutting him off with a very effective snort. “Given the stakes as they are? Your record isn’t exactly consistent, you know.”

André felt a surge of pride. The devil, but she was good. It didn’t matter whether she was Miss Grey or Mlle. Griscogne, she was his Laura and he was bloody grateful that she was on their side.

Delaroche took a step back. “Fouché would have told me.”

“Of course he would. Because Fouché always tells you everything,” Laura taunted. “You’ve made a proper mess of things tonight. I could have delivered them to you in one fell swoop: de Berry, Jaouen, the Purple Gentian. Now look what you’ve gone and done!”

“You lie,” said Delaroche, but he didn’t sound quite sure.

Laura, on the other hand, sounded quite sure. Heedless of the sword cane Delaroche held in one hand, she marched right up to him. She had, André noticed, cleverly shepherded him away from Gabrielle. Behind her, through the glass of the window, André could see Lord Richard, a shadowy figure in his dark coat.

If he came through now, he would land on Laura. André held up a hand, waiting to see where she would go.

Through the window, Lord Richard nodded.

“Do I lie?” Laura was backing Delaroche up towards the window. “Or can you just not bear the fact that Fouché might have replaced you?”

Delaroche held up his sword cane to ward her off, staring at her as one might at a horrid apparition of the otherworldly variety—too terrifying to credit, but too credible to deny.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

“Don’t you remember?” Laura smiled at him, a slow, dangerous smile. “I am the governess.”

André brought down his hand. Lord Richard burst through the window in a cascade of glass. Gabrielle screamed, from fear or excitement or both—a high-pitched sound that brought Delaroche whirling one way, then another, as though unsure which way to flee.

Lord Richard landed in the approved heroic pose, both knees bent and sword at the ready.

“Never anger the governess,” he said, and sent Delaroche’s sword cane flying with one well-placed smack of his own sword.

André and Daubier charged. Gabrielle sank her teeth into her captor’s arm just as André dealt him an unscientific but effective blow to the nose. He reeled back, clutching the appendage, blood oozing through his fingers as he landed heavily against the wall, then down into a sitting position and started mumbling.

Laura grabbed Delaroche’s sword cane, holding Jean-Marc at bay.

“Drop it!” she said in her best governess voice, and followed it up with a feint to the chest.

Jean-Marc dropped his gun.

Daubier scooped it up in his left hand and pointed it at Delaroche. “Call them off,” he growled, in a voice André had never heard him use before. “Call off your men.”

Delaroche was known for many things, but common sense wasn’t one of them. He backed away, glass crunching under his boots. “You can’t shoot that,” he sneered. “Not with one hand.”

“Can’t I?” said Daubier, and pulled the trigger.

Chapter 34

D
aubier missed.

The bullet went wild, hitting the glass front of Lord Richard’s bookshelf instead, sending bits of glass and chips of cherrywood flying. Delaroche dropped to the ground, shielding his face with his hands.

Laura lunged forward, grazing Delaroche’s wrist. More alarmed than hurt, he toppled back, landing flat on his derriere, his legs splayed out in front of him. Laura seized the advantage of his momentary confusion to level the point of the sword at his throat, just at the vulnerable spot between his cravat and his chin.

“My point,” she said levelly. “Call off your guards.”

Delaroche’s guards were milling confusedly, except, of course, for the one crouched against the wall, bleeding from his nose.

“Hold!” André’s voice rang out—the sort of voice one could imagine commanding the attention of an entire assembly—perfectly pitched, resonant with authority. Laura risked a peek. He was standing with one arm around Gabrielle’s shoulder, the other holding the bleeding guard’s pistol. “You’re outnumbered. Drop your weapons.”

“Don’t!” squeaked Delaroche, and scooted back on his behind as the sword grazed his neck.

André looked around at the assembled guards. “Has Monsieur Delaroche paid you? Anything?”

They dropped their weapons.

“I thought so,” said André.

Laura held the sword cane steady at Delaroche’s throat. “Have no illusions,” she said. “I have no qualms about using this.”

“I do,” said Lord Richard, coming up behind her, “but only because there are some chaps in London who have a number of questions they would be delighted to put to Monsieur Delaroche.”

“You are too generous, Monsieur,” said Daubier.

“Oh no,” replied the Purple Gentian with a smile that wasn’t quite a smile at all. “I don’t think so. Monsieur Delaroche, of all people, should know what it is to be put to the question.”

Delaroche went very, very still.

Lord Richard nodded at Delaroche. “Tie him. As for you lot,” he said to the guards as Laura got busy with the curtain cords. “I offer you safe conduct back to shore. You will forget you were here tonight.”

“To help you forget,” added André, “how about a few carafes of wine?”

Delaroche’s henchmen seemed to feel that this was, indeed, a fair deal, although they seemed inclined to haggle over the exact number of carafes involved.

“Ouch!” One suddenly leaped aside, both hands clasped to his posterior.

“Hmph,” said Jeannette, sheathing her knitting needle in a skein of wool. “If you had simply moved when I had asked, I wouldn’t have had to do that.”

“Safe conduct, you said?” said Jean-Marc—at least, Laura thought it was Jean-Marc. She had a great deal of trouble telling them apart. He backed away from Jeannette. “We’ll take that safe conduct now if it isn’t too much trouble, sir.”

Amazing what the application of a knitting needle could do for one’s manners. Laura would have to remember that for the next time she taught deportment.

Only—she caught herself up short—she wasn’t teaching deportment. She wasn’t a governess anymore. She wasn’t sure what she was, or even who she was.

“An excellent mission, Miss Grey,” the Purple Gentian told her, clapping her on the shoulder in passing. “Well done, nabbing Delaroche! The powers that be will be pleased.”

Laura couldn’t help it. She looked at André and saw his head jerk at that
Miss Grey
. Their eyes met for a moment. He had lost his spectacles somewhere on the other boat, and his eyes looked naked and lost without them. She’d always had the uncanny sense that he was looking through her, seeing through to the things she most wanted to keep hidden. Why, then, now that it mattered, did it feel like he wasn’t seeing anything at all?

Don’t hate me
, she wanted to say, but she couldn’t somehow.

Pierre-André made a run around Jeannette, shouting, “Papa!”

André’s attention abruptly shifted. He leaned down to hug his son, who flung himself, in his signature fashion, at André’s waist.

Laura stepped back, knowing herself to be irrelevant. This past month, after all, had been nothing more than fantasy, a play they played offstage as well as on. She had no place in the family circle.

“Pierre-André!” Gabrielle, for one, was delighted to see her little brother. Abandoning her father, she hugged him until he squirmed.

“Can I have a parrot?” asked Pierre-André.

They sent Delaroche’s guards back to shore with cards affixed to their necks bearing the image of a small, purple flower. For old time’s sake, the Purple Gentian had said, and since it was his ship, it seemed ungrateful not to let him have his way.

Delaroche they kept on board, well-trussed. Jeannette had insisted on retying him, deeming Laura’s ad hoc measures insufficiently thorough. All those years of knitting had given her a masterful way with knots. For once, she and Daubier had been in perfect accord.

Gabrielle and Pierre-André had been happily reunited with each other and their father. There was much hugging and exclaiming and general rejoicing while the stuffed parrot looked benevolently on. Pierre-André was much taken with the stuffed parrot. He was already practicing his “avast, me hearty,” slightly hindered by his inability to pronounce aspirates.

André apologized to the Purple Gentian for the ruin of his cabin and the Purple Gentian blandly assured him that it had been due for redecoration anyway.

In short, an excellent time was being had by all.

Among all the merriment, one former-governess-turned-spy wasn’t likely to be very much missed. Laura made her way to the back of the ship—she was sure there was a name for it, but things nautical had never been much to her taste, for obvious reasons—and watched France recede in the wake of the boat until the lights of the harbor were little more than an echo on the water, and then nothing at all.

An excellent mission
, the Purple Gentian had told her. She had rescued the Duc de Berry and captured a high-ranking, if slightly insane, French operative. She ought to be basking in her triumph.

Instead, she just felt tired. Tired and oddly let down. The thought of going back to England, to the boxes in the basement of Selwick Hall, to her old life as Laura Grey, or even her new life as the Silver Orchid, depressed her.

She found herself wishing, insanely, that she could turn back the clock by a week. She wanted to be back in the Commedia dell’Aruzzio. Absurd. She’d hated the Commedia dell’Aruzzio. She’d hated acting; she hadn’t much liked the other actors; and she certainly hadn’t been a fan of sleeping in fields and washing in lakes—washing, that was, when one had the chance to wash at all. She hadn’t liked the rowdy audiences or, even worse, the sulky and silent ones. She hadn’t liked the mules that had pulled the wagon or the ruts that seemed to be a perpetual feature of French country roads in early spring.

But there it was. She wanted to be back in that dreadful, drafty, creaky wagon where the roof leaked when it rained and the bed wasn’t quite large enough for two. She wanted to be on the damp ground by a smoky campfire with burnt stew if it meant that there would be an arm around her shoulders and a familiar voice murmuring things not meant for the rest of the company into her ear. She wanted to go back to being not Miss Grey or Mlle. Griscogne, but Laura of no surname at all.

She wanted to be with André.

Her mother had been wrong. Love wasn’t a grand explosion. It didn’t blaze onto the scene like a comet; it crept in like a spy in the night, muffled and disguised, worming its way in, not revealing itself until it was too late to do anything about it. Love didn’t attack; it infiltrated. The poets had gotten it wrong. Laura held them all personally accountable.

There were quiet footfalls on the deck behind her. Laura didn’t need to turn around to know who it was. She knew his tread by now, the same way she knew the way his hair smelled after three days on the road, the different tones of his voice, his trick of pulling off his spectacles with one hand.

“You ran off,” he said.

Laura didn’t turn. She didn’t want to look at him. She’d prefer to remember him as they had been before, not as he had looked when Lord Richard had uttered that first
Miss Grey
. Shouldn’t she be allowed to keep just one little memory intact, like a pressed flower in a book?

Pressed flowers were, by their nature, dead. Laura grimaced at the thought. So much for sentimentality.

Without looking at André, Laura said, “I lied to you.”

She could feel the weight of him settling on the rail beside her. “I know,” he said equably. “I lied to you, too.”

Laura kept her eyes on her hands, determined to make a clean breast of it. “My real name is Laura Griscogne. For the past sixteen years I’ve been Laura Grey. The Pink Carnation recruited me last summer.”

She had thought he would ask about the Pink Carnation, about her work. He didn’t. “Your parents?”

“They died in Cornwall, not in Lake Como. Otherwise, the rest is the same.”

“I see,” he said. She felt the wood of the railing give a bit as he shifted his weight, turning towards her. “Sixteen years of governessing?”

She was reminded, suddenly, of their first interview, André in his cloak and boots in the grand salon of the Hôtel de Bac, with rain silvering his hair and sparkling on his glasses. She swallowed hard, not liking the way memory made her heart twist. They had been different people then, and they would go off and be different people again—that was all there was to it.

“I wouldn’t lie about my credentials,” she said stiffly.

“No,” said André dryly, but there was something else below it. “I don’t imagine you would. Not about something important like that.”

If she didn’t know better, she would have thought he was joking.

“You were my first mission,” she blurted out. It seemed important to remind him of why they were there, of how she had betrayed him. It was too quiet, too calm.

André raised both brows. “I am honored.”

Laura turned so that her position mirrored his, each with one elbow on the rail, face-to-face. He looked tired, she thought. She hadn’t heard it in his voice, but it was there in his face, even in the shadows. It was there in the lines on either side of his mouth and the bags beneath his eyes.

Laura knew that if she touched his face there would be the shadow of stubble on his chin. She could practically feel it prickling against the pads of her fingers, more real to her than the damp wood of the railing. She scrubbed her hand against the side of her skirt.

“You shouldn’t be,” she said tartly. “If they’d thought you more important, they would have given you a more experienced operative. Instead, you were saddled with me.”

“To my great good fortune,” said André.

“Don’t mock,” said Laura, and her voice broke on the sharp end of the word.

To her surprise, André’s hand covered hers, warm against the damp, cold air. “I’m not. Do you really think I’m not grateful?”

Gratitude. The poor cousin of love. “You don’t have to be.” Laura tried to tug her hand away, but it was caught between his hand and the rail. “I would have done what I did no matter what.”

“Would you?”

Laura yanked free, scraping her palm on the rough wood. “Why must everything be a question?” she demanded in frustration.

“Why are you so afraid of the answers?”

“I’m not a—”

His mouth covered hers, cutting her off before she could finish the word. His lips were warm on hers. Despite herself, Laura leaned into him, luxuriating, for one last time, in the familiar taste and feel of him, in the comfort of his fingers in her hair and his other hand solid and steady on the small of her back.

Gently breaking the kiss, he framed her face in his hands, caging her. “Why did you come with us from Paris?”

Laura had been dreading this one. “Because the Pink Carnation asked me to,” she said honestly. “She wanted me to see the Duc de Berry safely to England.”

“And why did you sleep with me?” His voice was neutral, but his eyes were intent on her face, belying the casual tone. “Was that for the Pink Carnation too?”

Laura’s pride piped up, reminding her that it wasn’t too late to save face. She could lie, say it was for the mission, nothing more—just a ruse to convince people they really were man and wife. They would wander off their separate ways, each to their separate lives.

Laura bit her lip. “No,” she admitted. “If ever I was honest, it was in that.”

André’s arms eased around her, drawing her gently to him.

“There’s honesty and there’s honesty,” he said into her hair.

Abandoning common sense and pride, Laura squeezed him back. They clung to each other like shipwrecked souls hanging on to the last spars of the ship.

“What are we going to do?” she asked, her voice slightly muffled.

Loosening his grip, André rested his cheek against the top of her head. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I wish I did. What I do know is that whatever I do, I want to do it with you.”

Since that was rather the way she felt, it was hard to quibble with that. She had been on her own for too long to mesh her life with someone else’s gracefully. She knew herself for what she was: opinionated, stubborn, set in her ways. She knew there would be days when an arm around her might feel more confining than comforting, occasions when they would strike the wrong sorts of sparks off each other rather than the right kind, and nights when she would deeply regret the loss of her own bed and the undisputed rights to the covers.