Jean Marc smiled. “Do you think Juliette would let you try to free him without her help? Which places me in the unenviable position of trying to stop her or making sure she accomplishes your common goal with all speed.”
François slowly lifted his head. “And which is it to be?”
“I’ll not stand by and see her suffer a second time like this. I’m sending Juliette to Vasaro tomorrow. Is it possible we could get the boy out before she returns?”
“Nothing can be done at once. The convention is expecting the royalists to be stirred up by the queen’s death into making some sort of rescue attempt. They’ve increased the guards at the Temple.”
“How long do we have to wait?”
“Perhaps a month or two.” François rose and swayed. “I feel…Perhaps I’ve succeeded in getting drunk after all.”
Jean Marc stepped forward and put an arm around François’s shoulders.“Merde, I seem to be doing nothing this night but acting as a prop.” He sighed resignedly. “You’d best spend the night here. I’ll take you upstairs and put you to bed.”
“How kind of you.” François’s tone was scrupulously polite even as his knees gave way. “Too kind…”
“I agree,” Jean Marc said dryly. “It seems to me I was a good deal better off when I wasn’t so kind.”
“She’ll see Catherine.… Catherine…”
The geraniums were in full bloom, burnishing the fields with flame and heady fragrance when Juliette arrived at Vasaro.
Catherine was waiting on the front steps and threw herself at Juliette who’d just emerged from the carriage. Then she held her at arm’s length, gazing into her face. Jean Marc had sent a letter by messenger on the day Juliette left Paris, warning Catherine of her dear friend’s condition. Indeed she did appear to be drained, sapped of her characteristic energy and vivacity. But there was more. Much more. When Juliette had left Vasaro she had retained remnants of the impatient, impulsive child Catherine had grown up with at the abbey. Now Catherine could catch only the faintest glimpse of that child in the woman who had taken her place. Catherine experienced an instant of poignant regret. They were both changing and being changed, but not together as she had once hoped. “It’s terrible what they did to Her Majesty.”
“Terrible things happen everywhere.” Juliette put her arm around Catherine’s waist. “But perhaps not here. I needed to be reminded that there are still places like this in the world.”
Catherine smiled and took off Juliette’s bonnet, affectionately tousling her friend’s dark curls. “You must change your gown and come down to the fields with me right away. For the next two days you’ll do nothing but work with Michel and me.”
Juliette looked at her quizzically. “I must labor for my bed and board?”
Catherine nodded. “Of course, everyone works at Vasaro.” She smiled serenely. “You must pick the flowers, Juliette.”
TWENTY-TWO
You’ve not only failed, you’ve become a monster,” Anne Dupree said coldly. “How do you expect to be accepted by the gentlemen of the convention?”
“I couldn’t help it,” Dupree whimpered. “I had to hide from thepoliciaand almost died. By the time it was safe for me to go to a surgeon, my bones had healed wrong.”
“Better you had died than come back to me like this. What use are you to me? Do you expect me to care for you when it’s your duty to care for me?”
“No,” Dupree said quickly. “Everything will be as you wish. I can still get the Wind Dancer for you. I know who has it.”
“Jean Marc Andreas,” Anne Dupree said caustically. “And how do you intend to wrest it from him? While you’ve been away Marat has been murdered and you have no patron,no power. Are you to go begging Danton or Robespierre for a place?”
“I went to Danton at his home and he refused me,” Dupree admitted. “He said he had no use for murderers.”
“Yet he had use for you before you went to Spain. I told you no one would be able to bear the sight of you with your twisted bones.”
“But there’s still hope. When I managed to escape from Spain I went first to Marseilles and asked questions.” Dupree’s words tumbled one after the other in his effort to convince her. “Andreas has a cousin, Catherine Vasaro, for whom he has a fondness. She may even be the girl in the locket. There has to be some connection between Juliette de Clement and Andreas.”
“You told me the girl in the locket was a princess.”
He had forgotten he had told her that falsehood. “I thought she was a princess but perhaps—”
“You lied to me.”
“No,” he said desperately. “I thought she was a princess. I only said—”
“Never mind.” His mother’s gaze narrowed on his face. “How will you use the Vasaro girl?”
