The Secret History of the Pink Carnation (41 page)

The flagstones of the ministry provided echoing warning of anyone’s approach – unless that person had, like Amy and Lady Uppington, removed their shoes. But the only people to pass them had been soldiers, whose booted and spurred feet gave the alarm in ample time for Lady Uppington and Amy to fall to their knees and pretend deep absorption in grime removal.

All their earlier trials paled when compared to the prospect of having to fight their way past three sentries with what Amy had to confess to herself was a fairly meagre arsenal. In her daydreams of espionage, she had always been armed with an epee and a pistol (never mind that she had never been taught how to use either), and an escort composed of well-muscled members of the League of the Purple Gentian, who presumably knew how to employ both sword and firearms. Never had she imagined that she would find herself in the dungeons of the most closely guarded building in Paris, accompanied by an aging English noblewoman, with an armoury consisting of one dagger strapped to her calf, one elderly duelling pistol (courtesy of Lord Uppington, who had last fired it in 1772), and a bottle of drugged brandy. Jane had insisted on the brandy, over Miles’s protests that opiates had little place in hand-to-hand combat. Amy supposed they could always use the bottle as a club.

A dagger, a pistol, and a bottle against three large men armed with muskets.

‘Do you think he’ll have more men inside with him?’ Amy whispered to Lady Uppington, leaning over to make sure her dagger was still safely in its sheath.

‘We’ll face that when we get there. Or rather’ – Lady Uppington patted the duelling pistol tucked beneath her voluminous shawl – ‘
they
will face
us.
Ready, my dear?’

Amy loosened the ribbons securing her bodice and edged her neckline down to the verge of immodesty. Four weapons, she thought with a surge of optimism. After all, even Revolutionary guards couldn’t be entirely proof against the male propensity to make utter cakes of themselves when faced with a shapely female form.
Jane had garbed her with just that prospect in mind, ransacking the wardrobes of Richard’s maids until she had found a low-cut blouse that laced up the front, and a wide woollen skirt that stopped an inch short of Amy’s ankles and accentuated the sway of her hips.

‘Ready,’ Amy whispered.

Dropping to hands and knees, the two women rounded the corner, swirling their dirty cloths over the flagstones.
Slosh, swish.
Slosh, swish.
Two yards closer to the guarded door…another swipe of the dirty cloth and another yard disappeared under a slick film of water. Amy wondered if the three guards, visible to her only as three pairs of boot-tops and three pairs of black gaiters, would realise that their charwomen were scrubbing very lackadaisically and neglecting whole swaths of floor. Although, from the state of the flagstones, it didn’t appear that anyone had scrubbed down in the dungeons for a very long time. Ugh, was that clotted blood? Amy scuttled around a particularly nasty brownish stain, yanking her woollen skirts out of the way.

‘You!’ One set of boots detached itself from the row and tromped up to Amy.

Amy’s head flew up, past black gaiters and dark blue breeches, at which point her neck refused to bend back any further. Settling back on her knees, she tilted her head up to a broad face sporting three days’ worth of fair stubble. The guard who had stepped forward was the largest of the three, and clearly their leader, a hulking Goliath of a man, with jowls sagging around a beefy face, and a shock of pale hair of an indeterminate shade. He wouldn’t be easily subdued, thought Amy grimly. Behind him, poised on either side of the massive door, the two others looked on. If the first guard was Goliath, then the second guard, considerably shorter than his companions, had to be David; Amy’s gaze caught him halfway through a yawn. As for the third, he was lean and dark; a thin moustache, not unlike the one Amy had drawn on Jane’s face earlier in the evening, shadowed his lips. There was a dangerous stillness about him, as though he was holding himself taut, waiting to spring. Like a slingshot, decided
Amy. He would be one to watch carefully.

‘You!’ the big soldier – Goliath – barked again.

‘Yes, sir?’

‘What do you think you’re doing down here?’

Amy glanced down at her bucket, then over at Lady Uppington, who continued to ply her dirty cloth in slow circles, around and around the same flagstone. ‘Cleaning, sir?’ she replied.

‘I can see that.’ The guard rasped his hand through the stubble on his chin. ‘Did no one tell you you’re not to clean down here?’

He sounded irritable, but not suspicious. Amy breathed a silent sigh of relief and feigned confusion. ‘No, sir,’ she said eagerly, making a show of stumbling to her feet and brushing off her patched skirts. ‘We was just told to scrub. Did you hear that, Ma?’

‘Yes, yes,’ Lady Uppington croaked in cracked tones, the one word she could be trusted to say without alerting a listener to her English accent.

The guard nodded. ‘I can see as how it’s an honest mistake. Big place like this…’

Amy nodded enthusiastically; the guard didn’t seem to notice as she edged a few inches closer to the door with the movement. ‘You don’t know what a relief it is not to have to do this floor, too. Why, we thought we wouldn’t see our beds before dawn, and me Ma, well, she has another job days, at a big, fancy house in the Faubourg Saint-Germain.’ Amy drawled the last name with the contempt appropriate to any good revolutionary.

‘Long night,’ the guard agreed with a nod.

‘Yes, yes,’ Lady Uppington cawed again in her crone’s cackle.

To Amy’s surprise, the guard actually smiled. ‘Agreeable woman, your ma.’

Lady Uppington smiled broadly in acknowledgment, revealing a mouthful of blackened teeth. Amy had always known that trick with the soot and gum would come in handy someday. ‘Yes, yes.’

Amy might have been tempted to laugh, had she not caught the hint of a sound from behind the door. Any potential amusement at
Lady Uppington’s performance drained away from Amy instantly. Richard was behind that door, being questioned and possibly – no, probably – tortured. Enough chitchat.

Amy flung back her shoulders and leant forward so that her loosened bodice gaped. So did the short guard. His jaw fell appreciatively open, and his musket sagged several inches. Following up on her advantage, Amy twined a dark curl around one finger. ‘Long night for you all, too, ain’t it?’

‘Oh, it’s not all that bad,’ David babbled, staggering forward a few steps from the door to get a better view of Amy’s charms. One down, she thought. Lady Uppington was nudging her bucket slowly along the flagstones, closer and closer to the door.

Amy took a little step back, drawing David out farther from the door, and focused the force of her smile on Goliath. ‘Must get pretty boring just standing here all night,’ she said with a show of sympathy. ‘Don’t know how I’d stay on my feet that long. But then, I’m not a big, strong man like you.’

Something like a snort emerged from the shawl-covered form of Lady Uppington, but Goliath’s chest puffed out. ‘Doesn’t take much strength,’ he said gruffly.

‘Just staying power,’ put in the little one, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

Amy wasn’t quite sure what he meant, but from the accompanying leer, it was obviously meant to be prurient, so she grinned back at him as though she understood and waggled her eyebrows back for good measure, with an extra dip designed to show a maximum amount of cleavage.

The only one who didn’t show any sign of succumbing to Amy’s charm or her bosom was Slingshot, who stood just as firmly at his post as he had five minutes before, his hands just as firmly on the stock of his musket. And he was eyeing Amy’s antics with a decidedly inimical eye. Drat! Either he was fanatically devoted to duty, or smarter than the others, and had smelt a rat. Neither option suited Amy.

A rat. Amy’s face almost broke into a genuine grin as an idea hit.
That was how she would disarm Slingshot! Goliath was still modestly disclaiming any extra standing abilities. Amy gave an agitated squeal – not loud enough to disturb the inhabitants of the room, but just shrill enough to get the attention of all three guards.

‘Raaaaaaaat!’ she cried, yanking her skirt up around her ankles and hopping from one foot to the other. ‘Ooooh! Ooooh! There’s a raaaaat! Save me!’

She flung herself straight at Slingshot. Taken by surprise, the guard staggered sideways – away from the door. Amy grabbed his arm, and yanked him back towards the centre of the corridor, squealing and hopping all the while.

‘There!’ she panted, pointing a quavering finger at an imaginary spot down the hall. ‘I saw it right there! All dark and furry with them little sharp teeth! Ooooooh!’ She flung both arms around Slingshot, immobilising him in the middle of the hallway. Through the crook of his arm, she could see Lady Uppington, poised right outside the heavy oak door. But she wasn’t opening it. Amy made little flapping motions with her hands. Lady Uppington shook her head. Drat! What was she waiting for?

Amy frowned. Lady Uppington mimed glugging noises – and hurriedly bent again to the floor as David glanced her way. Right. The brandy.

Goliath patted Amy heavily on the shoulder. ‘There, there, miss. It’s gone now.’

Amy whirled away from Slingshot, making sure to keep one arm linked through his, and gazed up at Goliath with big anxious eyes. ‘Are you sure?
That
big it were.’ She sketched with one hand. ‘I could
feel
it brushing against my leg.’

Amy yanked up her skirts and stared down at the limbs in question. Three pairs of masculine eyes followed.

‘I’ll keep the big, bad rat off your legs,’ the little one offered with a leer.

‘I think…’ Amy sagged artistically against Slingshot. He might have been staring at her ankle with the rest, but she still had a feeling
that he’d bolt for his post the minute she released him. ‘I think I need a drop of brandy.’ She pulled the bottle out of the large pocket in her voluminous skirt, uncorked it, and, turning her head to the side, made a show of drinking deeply.

‘Greedy me!’ She giggled, ostentatiously wiping droplets off her chin. ‘Would any of you gentlemen like a drop?’

‘We’re not supposed to…’ began Goliath, with a longing glance at the flask.

Amy thrust the bottle at him and batted her eyelashes. ‘Oh, go on! I won’t tell!’

‘Yes, go on,’ urged David. ‘But leave some for me!’

Goliath took a long swig and passed the bottle to David, who glugged greedily, and offered it to Slingshot. The dark man shook his head. ‘We’re on duty,’ he cautioned with a glower.

‘What harm can it—’

Thud!

David broke off mid-sentence as the dungeon door swung open, banging into the wall. The ragged form of Lady Uppington darted through. Slingshot made a belated grab for Amy as she hastily yanked her arm from his, sprinting after Lady Uppington. The other two guards stood frozen with surprise, as, through the open door, the ragged old charwoman drew forth an elegant gold-chased duelling pistol from the folds of her grimy shawl.

Lady Uppington levelled her husband’s pistol at Delaroche with the skill of an assured duellist.

‘Drop those thumbscrews and step away from my son.’

Chapter Thirty-Eight

‘M
other?’ Richard gasped. Good God, Delaroche hadn’t even started torturing him, and already he was hallucinating. But that certainly looked like his mother, and right behind her was…Amy?

Richard blinked. It was undeniably Amy – and a good deal of Amy was on view thanks to the unlaced state of her blouse.

‘Don’t even think of moving,’ Lady Uppington snapped at Delaroche, as Amy sprinted past her and made straight for Richard. Behind her three guards, one fat, one short, one tall and thin, crammed through the entrance and stumbled to a stop just short of Lady Uppington and her pistol.

‘Did he hurt you?’ Amy grabbed at Richard’s bound hands, and began plucking at the complicated series of knots. ‘I don’t see any blood.’

Amy concentrated on picking the fibres free from Richard’s wrists, trying not to look at the iron maiden that gaped open in the corner of the room. The straw underfoot pricked at Amy’s bare feet and the stench, a dank stench of rooms long unaired, with a fetid hint of something even more distressing, of blood and fear, made Amy’s stomach clench. She dug her nails into the rope.

Over Amy’s bent head, Richard saw his mother carefully circle so that she could keep the guards within her sights as well as Delaroche.

‘Drop those muskets! Drop them, I said!’ Lady Uppington harrumphed in annoyance. Three dull thuds followed.

Lady Uppington glowered over the sights of her pistol. ‘If any of
you so much as consider moving, I shall shoot Monsieur Delaroche. Do you understand?’

Much shifting from foot to foot and mumbling ensued from the guards.

‘No talking!’ admonished Lady Uppington with a wave of her silver-handled pistol that made Delaroche flinch. ‘Oh, don’t be such a coward, you nasty little man. I assure you, I’m a crack shot. I won’t hit you unless I
intend
to hit you.’

As far as Richard knew his mother had never been near a pistol in her life. But who really knew what women got up to in their spare time? It was a terrifying thought. But it wasn’t quite as terrifying as the sight of Amy reaching under her skirts and sweeping up with a dagger in her hand.

‘The rope is all bunched together,’ she explained in response to his horrified glance. ‘I can’t untie it.’

‘How in the blazes did you get in here?’ Richard asked dazedly, trying to keep his eyes off the blade sawing back and forth between some very vital veins. A fibre snapped and he felt the rope slacken a fraction.

‘I’ll explain later.’ Amy cast a quick, anxious look at the three exceedingly restless guards. Richard flinched as the knife nearly went into his palm.

How long until the sleeping draught took effect? Jane had emptied well over ten doses of the white powder into the small bottle of brandy, enough, she had promised Amy, to put an elephant to sleep for a week. Goliath might look a bit like an elephant, but neither he nor David showed any sign of succumbing to lengthy slumber, and Amy had her doubts as to how much longer Lady Uppington could hold them back. Could Jane have been mistaken about the dosage? David yawned, but, then, he had been yawning before, and it was well past midnight. True, both the big man’s and the little man’s movements seemed slower, but that might be a result of Lady Uppington’s pistol, not the drug.

‘Ouch!’ Richard yelped.

‘Sorry, sorry,’ Amy muttered, turning her attention back to his hands. Another fibre snapped, and another. With a determined twist of his wrists, Richard broke free of the rope.

Amy dropped to her knees and began frantically sawing on the ropes binding Richard’s legs. She didn’t like the way that Slingshot was eyeing Lady Uppington, or the way Delaroche was edging closer to a lethal-looking double-headed axe mounted on a crimson velvet stand.

‘I’ll take over.’ Richard leant over, wafting Amy away from his legs. Between his mother holding a gun on Delaroche and Amy untying him, he was beginning to feel uncomfortably peripheral to his own rescue. Miles would never let him hear the end of it. Hell, he’d never be able to show his face in male company again. He might as well resign his memberships in his clubs and join a sewing circle. His mother, blast it, was getting far too much enjoyment out of poking Delaroche in the ribs with her pistol.

‘Stop!’ Lady Uppington snapped, as the little guard staggered a few paces sideways. A few steps closer to the pile of muskets. The little guard stopped, swaying on his feet.

‘Sleepy,’ yawned the little guard, sagging against the wall.

Richard wrenched at the knots binding his legs, pulling a tail of rope loose with a satisfied grunt. Nearly free.

Thump!

Straw and dust scattered in all directions as the large guard fell heavily to his knees and toppled over facedown on the floor. His smaller colleague gave another large yawn and tumbled on top of him, snoring. Delaroche wrenched his head around in shock. So, too, did a startled and delighted Lady Uppington. Her pistol wavered forgotten in her hand for a mere moment as she beamed at the small pile of sleeping men.

That moment was all Slingshot needed. Moving with all the coiled energy Amy had feared, he knocked the pistol out of Lady Uppington’s hand and grabbed her from behind, wrenching her back with such force that her feet rose off the ground. The pistol skittered
across the straw-strewn dungeon floor.

Dropping the dagger with a clatter, Amy dove for the pistol – as did Delaroche. Hampered by her broad skirts, Amy pounced on the pistol just as Delroche’s bony hand swept it up off the flagstones. Her hand clutched empty air and a handful of stray straws. Her left arm banged painfully against the flagstones as she plummeted heavily forward. Winded, Amy gasped for air, but her breath caught in her throat as the long barrel of a silver-and-gold duelling pistol filled her vision.

Amy scrabbled at the dirty floor, hastily scooting backwards as Delaroche followed, a self-satisfied smile on his angular face.

Kicking her legs free of the enveloping folds of her skirt, she lurched to her feet. Delaroche followed her movements with the pistol. Behind Delaroche, Amy could hear the sounds of Lady Uppington’s scrimmage with Slingshot, but she didn’t dare take her eyes off the gleaming pistol barrel pointing directly at her heart. To her left, she could hear Richard’s laboured breathing and the desperate scrape of the dagger against the ropes that still bound his legs.

‘You, Mlle Balcourt’ – Delaroche stepped deliberately forward, forcing Amy to slink backwards, her eyes fastened on the pistol – ‘have outlived your usefulness. You have become…how do you say in your barbaric tongue? Ah, yes. A nuisance. But not, I think’ – Delaroche herded Amy inexorably backwards – ‘for much longer.’

Amy skittered to a stop as a disquieting smile disfigured Delaroche’s thin face. Wrenching her head around, she froze as her horrified gaze encountered the bristling embrace of the iron maiden, two feet behind her. Amy made an inadvertent mewing noise of distress. That…he couldn’t…

‘You fiend!’ she gasped.

‘As you wish,’ he replied with a smirk. ‘Now, if you would be so kind?’ Delaroche waved the pistol in a macabre parody of politeness.

Amy cast a quick, panicky gaze around her. To her right, the open lid of the iron maiden blocked a sideways leap. To her left… Amy’s
breath rushed out of her lungs in a grateful sob as Richard bounded to her side. With one fluid movement, he yanked her out of the path of the iron maiden and positioned himself between Amy and Delaroche. A ragged tail of rope still trailed from his left leg.

‘You’ve had your fun for the night, Delaroche,’ he said grimly, brandishing Amy’s dagger. ‘Now it’s time for you to fight like a man.’

Delaroche snarled.

‘Richard,’ Amy whispered, ‘he still has a pistol.’

‘Mother!’ Richard’s eyes didn’t leave Delaroche. ‘Is that blasted thing loaded?’

‘I don’t – urgh!’ Slingshot tried to clap his hand over Lady Uppington’s mouth, but she administered a sharp elbow to the rib.’ – know, darling!’

‘Brilliant,’ muttered Richard, circling Delaroche to put the maximum distance between himself and the iron maiden. Trust his mother to bluff her way into the dungeons of the Ministry of Police with a possibly unloaded pistol.

‘There is one way to find out,’ Delaroche chortled. He aimed the pistol at Richard’s heart. ‘Farewell, Selweeeck.’

Amy struck at Delaroche’s arm as his finger closed over the trigger, knocking his aim sideways. The pistol discharged, knocking a fragment of stone off the wall. Make that a loaded pistol, Richard concluded, as he came up from his defensive roll. The force of the recoil sent Delaroche reeling several steps backwards. Amy sneezed uncontrollably as acrid black smoke trailed from the pistol.

Delaroche stared in alarm at the smoking firearm. With a sudden movement, he dropped the useless pistol and darted for the double-sided axe.

‘Richard!’ Amy screamed. She tugged at a broadsword mounted on the wall between two grinning skulls. The weight of the weapon sent her stumbling backwards. Richard raced to her side, grabbing the sword from her just as Delaroche wrenched the axe free of its mount. ‘Here, take this,’ he ordered, pressing her dagger back into her hand. ‘Free Mother.’

Delaroche swung at Richard, the double blade arcing in a deadly circle through the torchlight. Richard jumped back, leaving the edge of the axe to strike sparks against the stone of the wall. Richard tried to heft his sword one-handed, as he would an epee; his wrist nearly snapped under the strain. Hastily readjusting both hands on the hilt of the weapon and raising it with an effort, Richard cursed softly. Angelo’s fencing academy had never prepared him for this. Devil take it, this was the sort of sword one of his ancestors might have wielded at Agincourt. It had been made for burly barbarians wearing armour and riding massive warhorses – not a civilised nineteenth-century gentleman accustomed to dealing with the niceties of epees. Hell! Richard swung again, a clumsy stroke that missed Delaroche by half a foot.

Clang!
The axe clashed against the broadsword, taking a chip out of the blade. Reverberations trembled up Richard’s arms.

Who would have thought that Delaroche would have so much strength in him?

Richard retreated, trying to remember everything he had read in his inquisitive boyhood about medieval warfare. It wasn’t much. Just something about having to strike from above rather than stab with a broadsword, and he wasn’t even sure that was right.

Delaroche’s axe whistled by him again; Richard jumped back as the blade passed within an inch of his abdomen. Delaroche staggered with the force of the swing.

Getting the feel of his weapon, Richard swung again at Delaroche, hoping to catch him off balance. He missed, but the weapon moved more smoothly this time, and his adversary stumbled backwards, the axe dragging visibly. Richard’s lips curved into a predatory grin.

Amy’s ears rang with the wild clatter of their weapons as she ran to the aid of Lady Uppington, still struggling with her captor on the other side of the room. Lady Uppington’s kerchief had been torn off and her sooty hair straggled wildly around her face. The skin around one eye was already beginning to purple and swell, but Lady Uppington fought on undaunted, kicking at her assailant’s calves
with her bare feet as he tried to pin down her flailing arms. Blood trickled down Slingshot’s face from a series of nasty scratches that raked from eye to jaw.

‘Unhand me, you vile, vile man!’ she panted. ‘Didn’t your mother’ –
kick
– ‘teach you any manners?’

‘Don’t you be saying anything about my mother!’ With a growl, Slingshot’s hands shifted from Lady Uppington’s arms to her throat. Lady Uppington made little choking noises as he began to squeeze.

‘Nooooo!’ Amy launched herself at the guard. Her dagger tore through his sleeve, opening a long, bleeding rent along his upper arm. Roaring with pain, he dropped Lady Uppington, who stumbled, gasping, backwards. Enraged, he turned on Amy. Amy was dumbly regarding the blood darkening the keen metal of her dagger. Oh goodness. She had stabbed a man. And might have to do so again, if the expression on the guard’s face was any guide. Amy hastily yanked her bloodied dagger back into ready position.

Lady Uppington rushed for the fallen muskets, grabbing one off the pile.

‘I’ll do it again!’ Amy threatened shrilly as the guard advanced on her, his face mottled with rage and blood.

But there was no need. Behind the guard, Lady Uppington laboriously raised the musket. The heavy wooden stock crashed down on his head. Slingshot dropped, unconscious, to the ground.

‘Ha!’ Lady Uppington exclaimed raggedly. ‘And about time, too.’

Littered with bodies, the interrogation chamber was beginning to resemble the last scene of
Hamlet.
In the centre of the room, Richard and Delaroche continued to bludgeon each other with weapons that had been old when Shakespeare was young. It wasn’t like any duel Amy had ever imagined; there was no graceful interplay of blades, no quicksilver parries, no lightning footwork. Instead, the combatants lurched awkwardly backwards and forwards, propelled by the sheer weight of their weapons. Both were breathing heavily; both clutched hilts slick with perspiration. Richard limped slightly where Delaroche’s axe had nicked him just above the knee. Delaroche
favoured his left arm, where Richard had whapped him with the full force of the flat of his blade.