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“You’re right. My being there started out as a joke, but the dress captured the other guests’ attention—”
“Something ought to be put in about ‘the effect of the color arrangement while in motion—’ ”
“Exactly,” said Marcelline. “Then something about a waltz as the perfect showcase for the dress’s unique effects. Struck by my appearance, even the Duke of Clevedon danced with me.”
“Madame, how I wish I had been there,” said Jeffreys. “Any lady who reads a story like that will feel the same. They’ll all be wild to see the dress—and the shop it came from—and the women who made it.”
“We’ll have time enough to work out the details while we’re on the boat,” Marcelline said. “But we have to catch it first. Pack as if your life depended on it.”
And, I’ve done that more times than I can count, she thought.
“Certainly, madame. But the passports?”
“What about them?”
“You recall that the ambassador’s secretary told us that before leaving, we must send him our passports to be countersigned. Then we must take them to the prefecture of police. Then to—”
“We don’t have time,” Marcelline said.
“But, madame—”
“It will take all day, even two days,” Marcelline said. She ran this gauntlet twice a year, spring and autumn, when she visited Paris. She knew the entire tedious routine by heart. “The different offices are open at different hours. The British ambassador only deigns to put his name to the passports between the hours of eleven and one. Then one must wait upon the prefecture of police. After that comes the nonsense with the foreign minister—again who allows only two hours, and demands ten francs to take up his pen. You know it’s ridiculous.”
They need rules. They make so many.
She could hear Clevedon’s low voice, the tone implying a shared joke about the French and their rules. The first night, at the opera, came back in a rush of sensation: her hand on the costly neckcloth, exchanging his pin for hers . . . the way he’d watched her, so still, like a cat: the panther lying in wait.
She pushed him from her mind. She hadn’t time to brood about him.
“I know it’s silly, madame, but the secretary said we were liable to be detained if our papers are not perfectly in order.”
“You see to the packing,” Marcelline said. “Leave the passports and the officials to me.”
Saturday evening
“I can’t believe it,” Jeffreys said as she looked about the tiny cabin. They had been unable to obtain a chief cabin—but then, they were lucky to have been allowed aboard the steam packet at all, considering all the rules they’d disregarded. “You did it.”
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” said Marcelline. Especially, she thought, when the will belonged to a Noirot. It was amazing how much could be accomplished with a little forgery, a little bribery, a little charm, and a good deal of décolleté.
Not amazing, actually, considering that all the officials were men.
While Jeffreys was unaware of some of the details—Marcelline’s forgery skills, for instance, had best go unmentioned—she’d caught on to the other methods, and had even assisted. As the ambassador’s secretary had warned, several attempts had been made to detain them. The last bit, with the customs officials, was the most difficult.
“We did it,” Marcelline said. “And with time to spare, thanks to your clever gambit with your shoe ties.”
“I vow, I was frantic, madame,” Jeffreys said. “It would have been horrible to be within sight of the packet and not be allowed aboard.”
“And I was about one minute from losing my temper and ruining everything,” Marcelline said.
“You were tired, madame. I don’t believe you slept a wink, all the way from Paris.”
“A wink here and there,” Marcelline said. The French roads were improving, but they remained far from smooth. Between the jolting of the carriage and the plotting how to get through the next phase of bureaucracy and Clevedon’s thrusting himself into her overworked brain when she most needed to be logical, her fitful dozes had provided precious little rest. She’d made herself eat, but they hadn’t time to wait for a proper meal. They’d snatched what they could, and it wasn’t the best she’d ever eaten. Dyspepsia did not aid the thinking process.
Jeffreys had come to her rescue, however. She’d broken a shoe tie accidentally on purpose, and burst into tears. Two officials had assisted her with the repairs. It was hard to say whether her pretty ankles had softened their hearts or they’d feared another weeping fit or they were feeling hurried and harassed, too, thanks to the tumult behind them of another late arrival. Whatever the reason was, the men had waved them on.
Had Marcelline brought Frances Pritchett with her, they’d still be in Paris.
She examined her pendant watch. “We should depart soon,” she said. “I’m going up to take a turn about the deck.”
“I should have thought you’d want to fall into bed,” Jeffreys said. “I certainly do, and I had a great deal more sleep than you did.”
“I need to breathe the salt air and calm myself first,” Marcelline said. “It’s very pretty at night, watching the lights of the town retreat. You ought to come. We arrived from London in broad day. It’s so different at night.”
Jeffreys gave a little shiver. “You’re a better sea traveler than I,” she said. “I hope to be asleep before we set sail. I was sick most of the way coming here. I should rather not be sick on the way back.”
“Poor girl,” Marcelline said. “I’d forgotten. It was dreadful for you.”
“It was worth it, madame,” Jeffreys said firmly. “And I should do it again. I shall pray, in fact, to do it again.” She laughed. “But you go, and enjoy yourself.”
Marcelline left her, and made her way to the deck. The officers and crew were preparing to set out, and the passengers were settling down after the flurry of finding their places and seeing about their belongings. There was a good deal of noise, and a great many people. Night had fallen but the stars were out en masse, along with a bright half moon.
She had no trouble making out the tall figure at the rail, and even before he turned, and the moonlight and starlight traced his features, her heart was racing.
Chapter Six
Between the first week in April, and the last in November, Steam-Packets run daily, weather permitting, from their Moorings off the Tower of London to Calais, in about twelve hours; and likewise from Calais to London, in about the same time. Carriages, horses, and luggage, conveyed by Steam-Packets, are shipped and relanded free of expense.
Mariana Starke, Travels in Europe, 1833
She stood completely still, but for the feathers and lace of her bonnet shuddering in the wind. Outwardly Clevedon was as still as she was, while his heart leapt with an excitement growing all too familiar.
He strode toward her. “Surprise,” he said.
Her eyes narrowed. They were deeply shadowed, and he doubted that was merely the moonlight’s effect. She was fatigued, and no wonder. He was amazed at the speed with which she’d quit Paris. She couldn’t have slept at all after the party. Then, to reach Calais so soon, she couldn’t have stopped for more than the change of horses on the way.
He wondered how she’d done it. Getting all her papers signed in the middle of the night must have cost a fortune in bribes—paid, no doubt, from the money she’d won at roulette and cards.
Even he, for all his great rank, had not had an easy time getting through officialdom, and he’d set out hours after she did, when the bureaucrats were awake at least, though not all of the offices had been open.
Had he not been the Duke of Clevedon, and furthermore, had he not thrown his full ducal weight about, the packet would have sailed an hour ago, and he’d be in Calais watching it retreat across the Channel while
he cursed himself for a fool.
He was a fool, and he was cursing himself now, but to little effect.
In any event, she was angry enough for the two of them.
“Surprise?” she said. “There’s an understatement. Have you taken leave of your senses?”
Yes.
“I was worried about you,” he said. “When you left Paris so suddenly, I thought a catastrophe had occurred. Or a murder. Have you murdered anybody, by the way? Not that I would dream of criticizing, but—”
“I left Paris to get away from you,” she said.
“Well, that didn’t work.”
“How in blazes did you do it?” she said. “How did you know? How did you—but no, I won’t ask how you got through French officialdom. You’re a duke, and they haven’t cut off any noble heads this age. Still, one would have thought they’d learned how useless aristos are, not remotely worth indulging.”
He smiled. “But you need my noble head, Madame Noirot. You need me to pay the bills.”
“How did you know I was leaving?” she said.
“You are single-minded, I notice,” he said.
“How did you know?” she demanded, hands clenched.
Though he felt his face heat, he answered carelessly, “I sent my porter to spy on you. He was loitering about your hotel in the small hours of the morning when you and your maid departed from it, in a fiacre. At first he assumed you’d merely set a shockingly early hour for meeting Mademoiselle Fontenay. Then, when he counted the number of portmanteaux being stowed in the vehicle, he grew curious. From one of the inn servants, he learned that you had quit the hotel. Your destination, he discovered, was the posting office, and you were traveling to ‘visit a relative.’ In point of fact, I should be asking how you contrived to get out of France. You left hours before any of the officials who must approve your exit were even awake.”
“It didn’t occur to you that I might have made my arrangements previously?” she said.
“Did you?” he said.
“Ah, your spying porter didn’t find that out,” she said. “What a pity, because I’m not going to satisfy your curiosity. I’ve been traveling for a day and a half over wretched French roads, and I’m tired. Good night, your grace.”
She dipped the barest of curtseys and walked away from him.
